Becoming Mary Sue
by Mrowrkat98
Summary: Poor Alex just doesn't have a clue. At all... Wow, long time no update. REALLY SORRY.
1. Face to Face

Summary:** Meet Alex. She's just like you or me. Well, maybe not quite, but very similar. She dreams about meeting her storytime heroes all the time, and she's about to get the chance. But the Animorphs don't like Alex, and no wonder. She knows who they are, how they look, their strengths, their weaknesses and everything else there is to know. Including_ how the story ends._**

A/N: Alex is a bit of a self-insertion but it's using me and my personality from a couple of years ago (I've changed a lot) except for the part where she says she doesn't like sports. I love sports . I've also added a few more quirks to make her a more interesting character. Please read and review. Constructive criticism is VERY welcome. Rated T for some minor swearing.

My name is Alex.

I don't think anyone reading this will ever believe my story. Seriously. I don't even believe it.

It begins in my room, on a boring summer day. Sitting on my bed, hair still wrapped in a towel from my shower.

I was basically a normal kid, living in the land of normal, boring normality. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Let's just say I was sick of it all. I was sick of my house with rounded corners and child-proof drawers. I was sick of the school, where the only excitement was who was cheating on whom this week and how long it would take them to break up and find someone else to date. I was sick of our planet, with people running around from place to place, filling our atmosphere with dangerous gasses while they stressed about their meetings and popped pills for tension. I was sick of whiny little brats who cry when they break a nail.

Basically, I thought I was tough shit, and I was sick of the lack of action.

I really didn't like sports. I guess I found them pointless. Chasing after balls or flipping around, I never really understood why people did it. There was no good reason in my mind. They were wasting their time. It's not like any of them were actually ever going to make it big anyway. I had few hobbies too. I thought most hobbies were outright boring. Knitting? Come on. I wasn't specifically good at cooking or drawing or anything like that, so I kept a diary and watched television in my spare time. My diary was filled with wishes of something exciting to happen to me, rather than the useless gossip most people fill theirs with.

The rest of the time, I turned to books. I read all the time, imagining myself as the brave and fearless warrior, who bore her sword and smirked as her enemy charged. I would be strong. I would practice until I was perfect. None would oppose me. It was the perfect image in my mind. People did it all the time in history, and I was sure I could easily surpass those wimpy idiots.

Okay, so my favorite books actually had nothing to do with swords and shields or knights and dragons. I loved the Animorphs series when I was little and, like many fans, absolutely hated the television show for its cheap and aggravating imitation of the books. It had been a very, very long time since I'd opened the books. Now fourteen, I finally picked up _The Invasion_ again.

What did I expect? I knew it was sort of a little kid thing, and I hardly remembered the details, but I owned every book. Why not go through the series again? It was summer, and I needed something to do, considering my vacant social schedule.

So I opened the book. And everything _changed._

Suddenly, I wasn't sitting in my room anymore. I was on a beach. I swore loudly, but luckily there was no one around to hear. What had happened? It was like a strange dream. Did I blank out part of my life or something? How else did I get here? I stood up, no longer holding a book. I was still wearing my sweats and T-shirt, and my hair was still wet from the shower I had just had. Or not, considering that there was no way I could be here in that little of time. I smelled my hair. Yep, it smelled like Dove shampoo. Not the salt water of the ocean beside me. I looked around, but didn't recognize the beach. Then again, it wasn't likely considering that I lived inland. The ocean wasn't anywhere near my house. I didn't know where I was or what was happening. I was alone. Needless to say, that was the second I lost my cool.

There were no vehicles parked in the parking lot above the beach, and the sun was setting. The tide was going out, and I was getting more and more frightened by the minute. My stomach tensed. "Hello?" I yelled, hoping someone would answer. Nobody answered. I called for a while longer, but still, no answer. "Where am I?" I whispered. Of course, the only answer was the roll of the waves and seagulls screeching above. I walked up to the parking lot, but there were no houses in sight, only a highway with the odd car racing past. I knew better than to try to hitchhike, with all the creepers out there in the world. I walked back down to the beach. My eyes started to water.

I tried to regain my composure, but panic was really setting in. I started running down the beach, looking for someone that could help me. I ran over the sand dunes, jumping over puddle-like tide pools. I brushed past bushes, tears clouding my vision as I searched. After a minute I had arrived by a forest. I stopped running and fell down on my knees in the sand dramatically. I wasn't thinking straight. I had to get ahold of myself. I wiped my tears and ran over possible explanations in my head. Blackout, kidnapping, dreaming… none seemed logical. It didn't matter. I had to be brave. The tears ceased, making my dry eyes sting. I stood slowly and decided to calmly search. There was no use in wasting my energy. So I turned right and began walking, right through the bush that had been hiding me from the thing I was now standing in front of. I looked up. At first, in the twilight, I thought it was a person on a horse, but the horse was a little small, and when the person turned to me, they had no mouth. I screamed and staggered back, getting a good look at what now seemed to be a blue, mouthless centaur. This was scary. In the blink of an eye, I felt cold metal at my neck. A knife was my best guess. The centaur looked down at me with a very calm composure.

((Who are you?)) A voice asked. I was terrified to answer, but I was more afraid of not answering, knowing that a sharp object and my jugular don't mix.

"Alex," I said meekly. Then I realized what I was looking at. At least, I thought it was, from the descriptions I had heard. I stared in awe. There was no way this could be happening. It was just too weird. I was about to blurt out 'hey, you're an andalite,' when the andalite interrupted me.

((Yeerk,)) the andalite said, hatred dripping off his words.

"No. Not yeerk," I said. "Definitely not Yeerk." Tears were rolling down my cheeks again. If I messed up, I would be dead in less than a second.

((You lie. You must have followed us,)) its voice taunted.

"I'm not lying. I'm not a yeerk. Please, please don't kill me."

By then I had realized that knowing what an andalite was would raise awkward questions. I had to play stupid.

((She's alone. She might not even be one of them. Let her go,)) another voice said. A hawk settled in the sand nearby. Only this particular hawk had red tailfeathers.

"Tobias," I whispered, cursing myself the second the word was out of my mouth.

((What?)) the andalite who was obviously Ax demanded angrily, pushing his blade onto the skin in my neck. It was really starting to hurt.

"Nothing!" I yelped, realizing exactly how big my mouth was.

((Don't play games. If you don't repeat that now, your head will roll across the sand.))

"Okay, okay, I said Tobias," I said. Tears were streaming down my face. I was going to die! He could just flick his tail and my head would roll. How was I supposed to explain myself? Would it hurt to die? What had I gotten myself into? What the hell was happening? I thought Animorphs was just a book series.

((Where do you know that name from?)) Tobias asked.

It had to be a prank. My friends were pulling a prank on me. They must have found my books or something. I didn't understand how, but I knew it had to be a hoax. "Okay guys, very funny," I said nervously. "You can stop now."

((Answer the question.))

I figured they just wanted me to admit it. "Okay, okay, I read the books already. Give it a break."

((What books?)) Tobias asked.

((I believe you are not making any sense,)) Ax said, frustration edging up in his 'voice.'

I swallowed hard. This wasn't a prank. They really were speaking to my mind. I never actually heard anything. The metal was pressing into my neck painfully. It was time to stop pretending it was all fake. "Um…"

((Where do you know that name?)) Tobias asked again.

"I don't know," I said, feigning innocence. "I—I'm not sure."

Ax was getting frustrated. ((Tell us the truth!)) His blade tensed.

"Please, please don't kill me. If you promise not to kill me I'll tell you everything."

Ax quieted for a moment, looking beyond me. Then he nodded, a strangely humanlike thing for him to do, and lowered his blade. It occurred to me that someone was behind me, but when I turned to look there were four wolves. That didn't make me rest any easier. I hadn't ever actually thought of real wolves when I read the books, but here they were, yellow-white teeth bared, lips pulled back, wet noses so close that I could reach out and touch them, _real_.

((What is the truth?)) A male voice asked.

"You won't believe me." If they were wondering how I knew Tobias, there was no way they knew about the books.

((You'd be surprised by what we believe.))

"I'm sure I wouldn't be surprised," I said, gaining confidence like a snowball going downhill. I knew these guys. There was nothing to worry about, right?

((Just get to the point,)) a female voice said angrily. It must have been Rachel.

"Oh man, you guys aren't going to like this," I said. "I don't even know how it happened."

A wolf growled. ((Stop stalling.)) A different male voice this time.

"All right, all right," I said, holding up my hands defensively, even though they would make no difference against the wolf. "I've read about you guys, in a book."

((About us?))

"Yeah… the Animorphs," I said hesitantly. "Jake, Marco, Rachel, Cassie, Tobias and Ax. Um… right?"

All four wolves stared at me stupidly. The blade went back to my neck. ((I don't believe her,)) Ax explained.

"It's true. The books, by K.A. Applegate. About the Yeerk invasion and the andalites and the hok-bajaar and the… um…. Taxes, no, Taxors? I can't remember. I've read about Ax's brother Elf-something getting killed by Visor three, and how Elf…Elf… Elfangor! That's it! He's Tobias' father," I pointed at Tobias. Ax's blade dropped from my neck. I had pronounced just about everything wrong and forgotten the rest, but I got my point across.

((We need to find these books,)) a different female voice said.

((No kidding. Who knows how many yeerks know about us now.))

((How do we know she's not one of them?)) Rachel's voice said angrily.

There was a silence in my head, and it took me a minute to realize that they were talking among themselves. I waited patiently, not really wanting to draw the attention of wolves.

((What else do you know?)) Tobias asked.

"Well, I know that you five are just kids, or were kids in Tobias' case. I know that Rachel and Jake are cousins, and Jake is the leader. Marco is funny, Rachel is really pretty, Cassie is nice," by now I was just listing off character traits, because I hardly remembered much of the plot. "Ax calls Jake his prince, even though Jake tells him not to. You guys meet in Cassie's barn…" I trailed off, trying to remember more.

Jake took initiative, at least, I think it was Jake. It could have been Marco. ((You have to come with us.))

"Where?"

((You have to spend three days in captivity.))

"Oh yeah, because yeerks die after three days. You have to make sure I'm not one. Jake got infested once, right?" I really wanted confirmation that what I was saying was true, but I got none. "What about my parents?"

((This is far too important. I'm sorry, but we can't allow you to contact them.))

I understood, but it still wasn't fair. "Just to tell them I'm safe? I'll tell them I'm sleeping over at my friend's house."

A pause. ((No. You can't contact anyone.))

"But they'll send out a search! I'll be in trouble when I get home!"

((If you get home,)) Rachel snarled.

I turned around to face Ax again. "Come on! Please?"

((That is not my decision to make.))

"But your parents are worried about you, aren't they?"

Ax stiffened, and I knew I had hit a soft spot.

"Please, let me go home. I swear I'm not a yeerk. I hate yeerks."

((Follow me,)) Ax said, and I walked behind him, losing sight of the wolves. We walked on the sand along the woods. I had long since strayed away from the parking lot and the road was nowhere in sight.

Only Tobias followed us, soaring overhead.

Night had fallen, and it was difficult to see clearly. Though it was easy to locate the shape leading me, I couldn't seem to notice the ups and downs of the sand, and I tripped and stumbled often.

I looked up at the black bird silhouette against the deep blue sky. "It must be so wonderful to fly," I said wistfully to Ax. I didn't realize that Tobias could hear me.

((It is wonderful,)) he said. I searched the rest of the sky before we turned to enter the forest, and noticed other birds flying into view.

"I didn't think you guys existed," I said conversationally. "Well, after grade four at least. Before that I thought you could be real."

There was another pause. ((How old are you?)) Ax asked.

"Fourteen."

((We haven't been fighting that long,)) Ax said. I stopped, stunned.

"But the books have been around since I was like, five years old!" I said.

((We haven't. Are you sure you're going to keep to that story?)) one of them said.

"It's the truth," I said. "If one of you morphs yeerk and checks it out, you'll know. Doesn't Cassie have one?"

Nobody spoke.

I ran my fingers through my wet hair slowly, letting out a long sigh. It was cold outside, and my hair had started to freeze in the slightest. I was cold.

What the hell was going on? It had to be a dream. A bit too elaborate for a dream of mine, but that was the only way. I pinched myself hard without hesitation. "Ouch!" I yelled.

((Quiet!)) Ax demanded.

Marco, on the other hand, was howling with laughter. Well, I'm pretty sure it was Marco.

((What?)) Rachel's voice demanded.

((She had to pinch herself,)) Marco howled.

((It's not _that_ funny,)) Rachel said after a moment of fighting back her own laughter.

((It's okay,)) a kinder voice said. ((I have to pinch myself every day to make sure it's real. Don't worry, it is.))

"Worry," I muttered under my breath, "why would I worry? I'm kickin it with the Ani-freaking-morphs. No, I have no reason to worry."

Ax caught that. ((I believe this is sarcasm. Am I right?))

"Yes Ax, yes it is," I said, not believing myself as I spoke.


	2. A little CrAzY

Despite the exhaustion, I couldn't seem to sleep. Thoughts were running through my head at high speed. Ax had assured the others that he could take care of me all by himself and they left, but I had the feeling that it was not quite the case.

"We're not alone, are we?" I asked.

((We are alone,)) Ax sighed. He was lying down, similar to the way a horse would. I rolled over in my makeshift bed of jackets and sheets on the floor of the small shack we were in.

"Sure?" I asked. "I won't be mad if there are others."

((We are alone,)) Ax repeated.

That wasn't going anywhere. He seemed hostile. I decided to make conversation instead. "How do you pronounce your name?" I asked.

He said it slowly so I could follow. I repeated it until I got it right.

"Can I call you Aximili?" I asked.

((Why?)) he asked.

"Because it sounds cooler than Ax."

Ax nodded. I guess he'd picked up a lot of human gestures.

I stared at his face intently, examining his nose and his eyes. They were a startling gold. I reached out my hand impulsively to touch the fur on his cheek. I must have taken him by surprise, because before I had even come close, his tailblade had flicked and was hovering inches from my chin.

"It's okay," I said. "I'm not going to hurt you or anything."

I made contact with his cheek and there was a sudden angry shudder that travelled all the way down his body and he drew back from my hand, flicking it away with the side of his blade.

"OW!" I yelped, nursing my hand that at first felt as though it must have been broken.

((Do not,)) Ax said firmly, ((do that again.))

"Sorry," I muttered, not quite sure what I had done that was to horrible.

I looked at the ceiling of our little shack. If it rained tonight, we were screwed because the roof had gaps and the wood was rotted. I was annoyed that of all places I had to be here, in a shack, being watched by an alien. I suppose that by then, I was past the stage of freaking out, now I was just plain uncomfortable. Not that I wasn't still concerned about my sanity, I just chose to accept it, just in case it was actually real. I missed my mom and dad and even my older brother, and though it was sort of cool to see an alien, I just wanted to go home.

But wait. Wasn't this the excitement I'd always wanted? Honor and the exhilaration of the fight? I could have that. It's just that I wished I could be with my family at the same time.

"Aximili?"

((Yes?)) he responded in an irritated voice.

"What do you think of me?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Aximili considered his answer for a while before replying. ((I believe that you are very strange indeed. Very likely a yeerk, but it is strange that you know so much about us and the yeerks still have not attacked. That leaves two possibilities: you are a trap set by the yeerks, or you are sincere. The sooner is more likely by far.))

I didn't understand most of what he had said, but it gave me the impression that I wasn't to be trusted. It wasn't exactly reassuring. Maybe if I was nicer…

"You had a brother, didn't you?"

((Yes.))

"What was his name again?" I wasn't exactly sure that what I had told them before was correct. Besides, I had already forgotten the name I had given. I was a little ashamed of myself for not remembering. After all, I had read the books so many times as a kid.

((Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul,)) Aximili replied curtly.

"Oh. He was a warrior, wasn't he?"

((A Prince.))

"Oh." Damn. If I kept making mistakes, I wouldn't get anywhere. "I'm sorry for your loss."

((He was brave,)) Aximili said. ((I am also sorry he is gone.))

"Couldn't he have morphed? I mean, to save himself?"

Ax glared at me with his main eyes. Now I'd done it. Me and my big mouth.

I waited for his tail blade to rise to my throat, but the moment never came. Instead, his expression softened a hair. ((I ask myself that every day,)) he said, turning his main eyes away and instead keeping a stalk eye on me.

There was a very awkward silence between us. I didn't want to bother Aximili, for fear of causing my own tragic death.

I eventually fell asleep, drowning in an uncomfortable silence. But I was tired and sleep was very welcome. The next day, I got a small meal consisting of an apple and a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. I laughed when Tobias swooped in with it in his talons. He dropped it and settled on a fallen beam near the back of the shack. Ax left, probably to have breakfast.

((What's so funny?)) Tobias asked when I couldn't stop laughing. He sounded annoyed.

"That is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. A delivery hawk."

Tobias glared at me. Of course, hawks always glare, but I think that was a special glare reserved for people that really pissed him off. I stopped laughing.

"Maybe I should start wearing a hat?" I asked, remembering that Marco was once told that.

Tobias laughed in thought-speak, shaking his hawk head. ((Did you come up with that one on your own, or did you have help?))

"Actually, I read it in one of the books," I admitted. "Marco asked if hawks go to the bathroom while they fly, like seagulls."

Now how was it that I remembered that and not Aximili's brother's name? Maybe it was just the funny things that stuck out.

Tobias seemed astonished. ((I barely remember that. How did you know?))

"It was in the books," I said simply. "You should know the books, they're famous."

Tobias ruffled his feathers. ((Marco looked it up. There is no author named K.A. Applegate, nor is there any series called Animorphs.))

"That doesn't fit!" I said. "I've looked it up a million times on the internet, and there are about a million sites. Are you spelling it right?" I realized how hungry I was and took a bite out of the PB and J.

((No there aren't. We used the spelling you gave us. There are no websites mentioning anything about us.))

I ran that over in my head a couple of times. There was something seriously wrong with that. There was a long pause before I spoke again. "Am I insane?" I asked.

It took Tobias by surprise. ((Well, I'm pretty sure that I'm real.))

"This coming from the talking bird," I said. "No offense."

((Yeah. There's basically no way I can convince you. Just like there's no way you can convince me that you're telling the truth.))

"Like I said, send Cassie on in. She'll figure out if I'm telling the truth. Bring her in right now."

((Can't,)) Tobias said.

"Why not? Too busy working at the barn? It's summer. What could possibly be getting in her way with no school?"

((It's spring,)) Tobias said.

"Not as of the end of June. Did you already forget when school ends?"

((No. It's April.))

"WHAT?" I asked shrilly. "How is it April? It was July last time I checked! Did time move backwards?"

((Be quiet!)) Tobias hissed. ((Someone might hear you!))

I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths. After a while, I asked again. "How can it be April?"

((I don't know. Maybe you were wrong about the date.))

I laughed. "As if I could get it wrong. School was out! Are you screwing with me?"

Tobias made no reply to that. I thought about my situation. I flashed from my room to the beach, there was no series of books here and the time change… It was all connected. I must have gotten sucked into the book! Okay, crazy as it sounds, that was the only logical explanation. Ha! _Logical_.

I explained my theory to Tobias. It was his turn to laugh.

((That is the craziest thing I've ever heard. And I'm a talking bird!)) He fluttered to the floor and looked at me closely. By then I had finished my PB and J and was now moving on to my apple. I stared him in the eyes. ((You sure don't act like a yeerk.))

"An if oo willy think I'm a weerk, oor ooing a willy cwappy impwession o an andarite," I retorted with my mouth full.

Tobias fluffed his feathers again. ((Okay, you caught me.))

"You don't have to pretend like the others aren't human either. I know they are."

((You're not _supposed_ to know that.))

"But I do. Don't worry, the secret's safe with me. I'm not telling anybody. Besides, who's going to believe me if I say that a bunch of people are actually not aliens?"

((Yeerks will.))

"Even if I do, they'll just kill me or something anyway. Why would I want to do that?"

((Fair enough.))

Another pause. The sun was shining through gaps in the roof, and I wished that I could go outside and enjoy it. Instead, I placed myself in a sunny spot and enjoyed the heat.

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked. "I mean, when you find out I'm not a yeerk."

((It's up to everyone else,)) Tobias said.

I'd already made my decision. "Until I find a way home, I want to fight."

((What do you mean?))

"I mean I want the morphing power so I can help you. Please?" Was my family even here? Could I find them and go back to normal life, or maybe fight from home? Even then, would my family still be the same one I know? Or was I stuck here in the land of Animorphs with no family?

((That's not likely.))

"Why not?"

((We have enemies that aren't yeerks,)) he said. ((You could be a spy.))

"ARGH!" I yelled. "Stop it! All the stupid theories you come up with! Just put Cassie inside me so I can stop needing to defend myself!"

((In our line of work, you can't be too careful.))

"I know, but I'm sick of getting accused of crap that never happened. I'm not a yeerk and I'm not working for any enemies! I'm just way confused about being stuck here inside a book!"

((This isn't a book.))

"How do you know that?" I demanded angrily.

Tobias didn't speak to me for the rest of his shift. After midday, Aximili came back, and he didn't seem eager to talk to me either. Tobias joyfully left me in his charge. It didn't make me feel any better.

I spent the rest of the day in boredom. It really didn't seem fair that everyone had already judged me. Finally, I heard a male voice in my head. I had a feeling it was Jake, because Marco was not the leading type. ((Ax, come outside. Leave Alex inside, we have the place surrounded.))

Ax obeyed. As soon as he was gone, I rushed to the door, hoping to overhear some of the conversation. There was nothing to be heard though, not even whispers. I sat there angrily, waiting for something to happen.

**JAKE**

Four of us were in wolf morph and Ax and Tobias were as themselves. I didn't want Alex to hear us, and I definitely didn't want to be unarmed if she tried to escape. And if someone showed up nearby, four wolves would definitely scare them off. We just hoped that in that case, Ax wouldn't be spotted. We surrounded the cabin, watching at all times and speaking in private thought-speak.

((So what have we got?)) I asked.

((She is not at all careful. A yeerk would be more cautious with their words,)) Ax said. My impression was that his experience with her had been less than fun.

((What about you Tobias?))

((I agree with Ax. Though it might be a trick. She told me she wanted Cassie to infest her so we'd know she was telling the truth.))

((That's good enough reason for me. Go for it Cassie!)) Rachel said.

((She wants the morphing power,)) Tobias said.

We all looked up at him, circling in the sky. ((What?)) four voices asked.

((She told me that she wants to fight with us. She said when we find out she's not an enemy, she wants to fight with us until she can find a way back.))

((Did you tell her that the books don't exist?)) Marco asked.

((Yeah. She's taking it pretty hard. She's convinced that she got sucked into one of the books.))

((Nut job,)) Rachel said.

Marco agreed.

((How much _does_ she know?)) Cassie asked.

((She knows you guys are human,)) Tobias said, ((and she knows I was human. She also knows really weird things, like things we've said in the past. Or more specifically, things Marco has said. She kind of got to me, not in a good way, but not really in a bad way either. It's like she asks questions without worrying about the other person.))

We considered that for a while. ((Ax, what do you think about her?))

((She is strange. She did not remember Elfangor's name. I…)) he trailed off.

((Go on Ax.))

((I agree with Tobias. She makes me uncomfortable.))

((So, what do we do?)) Marco asked.


	3. Bonne Appetite

Chapter 3

Let's just say it didn't take them very long to decide what to do with me. A tiger—a very _real_ tiger--waltzed in the door, and I had a fleeting suspicion that it was his job to rid them of me.

Let me say this now. If you've ever been to a zoo, you've seen a tiger. You know that they're the biggest of big cats. But you've probably never been sitting down when a kitty two and a half times your size looms in, towering above you. It's scary.

The tiger's body moved with muscular grace. Before then, I'd had no idea that anything that big could be graceful. It was beautiful too, but that wasn't necessarily on my mind at the moment.

"Please," I murmured as Jake's bared teeth came closer and closer. "Please don't kill me. I have a family, same as you. I-I—"

((I'm not going to kill you,)) Jake said calmly.

"Jake, I'm not stupid. If you're not planning on killing me then why are you in tiger morph?" I asked suspiciously. I sounded braver than I felt.

((How do you know who I am?))

"You're the only one with a tiger morph, duh. It didn't help that you were the first one to come in either. You're the leader, you usually go first." Maybe to him I sounded calm, but I was babbling, shaking. My voice was probably cracking.

((How much do you know about me?))

I began listing off everything I remembered about Jake. "You and Rachel are related, you have a big brother who's infested, your last name is Bear…Bear…Berenson, that's it! You've got sort of brown hair and blue eyes—I think. At least Rachel does, but I don't remember about you…" The list went on.

((Well, I guess if you already know what I look like and my name, there's no use in the disguise, is there?)) Jake's lips dropped from his snarl, making him look a little less menacing. He moved away from me and began to demorph.

I had read about demorphing so many times and imagined it over and over again. Still, I had never seen it happen. It's completely different. In my mind was a sort of undetailed picture, almost cartoonish. Real morphing wasn't like that at all. If you've ever really looked at an animal, like, straight in the face and actually imagined it demorphing, you'd have a slightly better idea, but still no real comprehension of what I saw.

The tiger was actually _changing shape._ It wasn't pretty. The ears didn't change together, they just did their thing separately, destroying the elegant look of symmetry I had imagined. The only pair of things that changed together were his legs, and even then, they sort of withered and then regained their shape. It was like the most disgusting horror movie in existence, except there was no blood or guts. I had to look away until Jake spoke. This time it was a real, human voice. It had been a while since I'd heard any aloud voices but my own, and it filled me with joy to hear Jake's.

"You can turn around now," he said. I turned to see Jake. He was way hotter than I'd imagined. His hair was a little longer than I'd thought, but he wasn't quite as muscular, though he definitely wasn't skimpy. His hair was slightly wavy, giving it an untamed-and-I-don't-care look, and it wasn't dark brown like I'd imagined, but more sandy. The only thing that made me stop staring was the fact that he was wearing a tight T-shirt and bicycle shorts. I stood up slowly.

Well, it wasn't exactly like I knew what I was doing. It was a pretty uncomfortable moment. He walked up to me carefully, but with a deliberate force. He was a good five inches taller than me, and I had to look up to see his face. I finally realized that I was looking at a real, live character from a book. It was pretty astonishing. "I'm Jake," he said, reaching his hand out.

For a minute, I just stared at his hand. His fingers were less callused than I expected. When my mind finally registered to shake hands, I reached for his. His handshake was firmer than his soft hands seemed to illustrate, and I tried to match his grip unsuccessfully. "I know," I said stupidly, not exactly sure what one was _supposed _to say when meeting a not-so-fictional-anymore character.

Jake nodded. "It's nice to meet you too. Alex, right?"

I had a feeling he knew very well that Alex was my name. "Yes."

There was a short silence, but every moment was like twenty years in my mind.

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked earnestly.

"It's your choice," Jake said. "We can't let you go obviously."

"Yeah," I said, trying not to sound upset about it.

"We're strongly contemplating putting Cassie in your head to figure out exactly what your deal is."

"I've told you guys what my 'deal' is," I said.

"No offense, but we can't exactly trust your word on that one."

I nodded. I knew that, I just wished they could take my word for once. "What are my other options?" I asked.

"We'd be glad to get any suggestions. We're not eager to kill anyone, but since we're pretty confident at this point that you're not a yeerk, holding you for three days just isn't going to do the job."

"Just put Cassie in me," I said. "I don't have any other bright ideas, and then you'll at least know that I'm not lying."

"Okay then," Jake said. He opened the door and whispered something I couldn't hear, then closed the door and walked across the room. He took the jackets and sheets I'd been using for a bed and arranged them on the floor. "You should lie down, it'll make things easier."

I adjusted my clothes. Jake was cute and nice. I wanted to look as good as I could in front of him. I crossed the room and sat on the jackets, running my fingers through my hair and immediately finding several knots. I pulled my hand free and settled for tucking it behind my ears. Now I regretted the fact that I had no hairbrush, no makeup on and only sweats. Maybe I would have felt better if my hair were at least in a ponytail…

"One order of escargot," Marco announced as he entered the room. He was even cuter than Jake, and I found myself wondering if Tobias was even better-looking, not to mention Ax's human morph. I examined his black hair and dark eyes, slowly taking in his features. I stopped, however, when I saw what he was holding.

I had never seen a slug so big. It was a mixture of green, gray and brown, and possibly the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. Green-gray slime was dripping from it and it was not in the least bit appetizing. I shuddered involuntarily.

"Alex, right?" Marco asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"I'm Marco," he said friendily, "and this is Cassie." He held out his hand so I got a good view of the slug.

I gagged at the smell and held up my hands nervously. "Gross."

"Well that's not very nice," Marco said. He sheltered Cassie the slug mockingly. "It's okay Cassie, she doesn't mean it." I giggled despite the situation.

"Shut up Marco," a female voice said. I looked up to find a new face in the room, quite obviously Rachel. She was just like the book had described: stunningly beautiful. Her long hair was a natural bleach blonde and her eyes were deep blue. She was Jake's height, and she had an amused smirk on her face. She noticed my gaze and sent me a sharp glare, causing me to redirect my eyes back to Marco.

"Cassie's going to crawl in your ear," Jake said. "I'm guessing you know the process. She'll put out painkiller and take momentary control of you so she can read your memories easier. Don't be scared, she'll come back out later. But you have to know that you'll have no secrets when she gets in."

I quickly searched my brain, in case there was some sort of secret I wouldn't want them to know, but there was nothing there I could think of. I was a little afraid that they would judge me as a bad person, but I reminded myself that I was strong, so there wasn't anything to worry about. "Okay." But the longer I looked at Cassie, the less I wanted her squeezing through my ear canal. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I could do this. I opened my eyes again and felt something slimy touch my ear.

"AHH!" I yelped, covering my ear with one hand and turning to find Marco at my side, still holding Cassie.

"She said okay!" he yelled defensively at Jake.

"Calm down Alex," Jake said. "It's just Cassie, you don't have to be scared."

But I was scared. I was not eager to have a slug shoved inside my head whether it was a person at one point or not. I shook my head.

"It would be a lot easier for us to just kill you," Rachel reminded me. I believed that Jake didn't want to kill me, but when I caught a glance of Rachel's menacing grin, I decided that she probably would do it. Slowly, I took my hand off my ear. "Good girl."

I resented being treated like a disobedient puppy, but it wasn't as if I had a choice. It was this or death, and I had to admit that I liked the slug idea a lot better.

"Ready?" Marco asked.

I nodded and closed my eyes. The slimy creature touched my ear and I flinched, but steadied myself carefully as the creature wormed its way into my ear. It was disgusting, and I had to fight the strongest urge to pull away with everything I had. Someone's hands held my head steady for me. The slug squished through my ear canal, feeling like a giant, cold, slimy q-tip. It was a very uncomfortable sensation. I felt something touch my mind, like a finger brushing my skin ever so slightly. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Suddenly, my eyes fluttered open, not of my own accord and I heard a voice in my head.

((Nice to meet you Alex.)) I tried to close my eyes again, but they didn't close. Instead, I leaned back onto the bed of jackets, then my eyes closed.

((Cassie,)) I said. I felt a flood of memories go along with those, showing Cassie my mental image of her and all I knew about her.

Cassie seemed slightly overwhelmed with this. ((That's not quite what I look like, but you're pretty close,)) she said kindly. ((I'm going to shuffle around a bit if that's okay with you.))

_I didn't think I had a choice,_ I thought.

((Now that I'm here, I don't think you do,)) she muttered. I didn't think she knew she'd said it to me though.

Memories surfaced without me calling them up. The books, what I was doing there, everything. Cassie just flipped through my brain, carefully avoiding anything that was irrelevant. Even when she examined the information from the books, she seemed to avoid the majority of it. After a few minutes of memory searching, she withdrew and spoke to me again.

((This makes things way less complicated,)) she said happily. ((As weird as this is, you're telling us the truth.)) She paused. ((Or maybe it makes things more complicated. Either way, you seem like a trustworthy person. I'm sorry we've been so hostile towards you. Can you forgive us?))

((Yes,)) I said immediately. It was so great to finally meet the people I had idolized for so long, especially Rachel.

Cassie opened my eyes and sat up. She broadcasted her thought-speak to everyone around. ((We're all good,)) she said. ((Looks like she's telling the truth.)) I beamed inwardly as the faces around me went a bit pale. Ax and Tobias were in the room now, I hadn't even heard them come in.

Marco was first to respond. "Then what does that make us?"

((I don't know,)) Cassie said solemnly.

((Maybe Alex is just mentally unstable,)) Ax suggested.

_Hey!_ Not to say that the possibility hadn't crossed my mind, but still! I was still _there, _in case he hadn't noticed.

((I'm pretty sure she's stable,)) Cassie said hastily, sensing my indignance. ((Her mind is just like Truman's was. She doesn't seem to have any difficulty with reality at all.))

"Are you sure?" Jake asked.

Cassie paused. ((Yes.))

"All right, come on out," he said.

((I'm giving you back control now,)) Cassie said gently, and I slowly felt control come back to me. I held myself up and felt an uncomfortable sensation again as Cassie crawled out of my ear. Marco picked her up and moved her to a safe place for demorphing, and I turned away as she began to change. I didn't want to lose my PB and J sandwich.

All eyes were on me when I turned back around. I smiled. "Does this mean I'm in?" I asked hopefully.

Jake examined everyone else's faces. "Let's vote. All in favor of Alex joining the team?"

Cassie raised her hand immediately.

Tobias looked at her carefully, then said, ((If Cassie thinks it's a good idea, I won't argue.))

((I will choose what Prince Jake believes is right,)) Ax said.

Rachel was next. "I say no," she said firmly, providing no reason.

When it was clear that Rachel didn't want to be asked why, things moved on to Marco. His class-clown grin was gone, and a serious expression replaced it. "As much as I'd like to see another girl on the team, I'm a no too."

I blushed a bit.

"It's your call Jake," Marco said. "Pressure's on."

Jake looked at everyone in the room carefully, especially me. After a long time, he spoke. "I'm just as concerned about this as you guys are," he said, nodding at Marco and Rachel. "But the truth is, we need help. I trust Cassie's judgment, so I'm going to say yes, but on a few conditions." He looked at me, waiting for my approval.

"Okay," I said.

"First, you use the morphs we give you. We know what we're doing, trust me."

"Sounds fair," I said.

"Okay. Second, you have to give the utmost respect to every member of the group. Like I said, we've been doing this for a long time. We know our stuff."

"All right."

"Third, you have to use your powers responsibly. Avoid the two-hour limit like the plague and never use the morphing power to do anything illegal or harmful unless we tell you that you can. Even then, we'll try to make it right."

I nodded.

"So you agree to our terms?" Jake asked.

"Absolutely." As much as I wanted to pick my own morphs, it wasn't as if I had a choice. Maybe they would let me have some say at least.

"And you know that if any of these terms are broken without a really, really good reason, we're totally liable to cut you out of the group?"

I nodded again.

Rachel felt the need to intercept. "And you know that if you are a threat to our safety, you risk being killed."

"Of course," I said, my voice shaky. This was so huge.

"Then you're in," Jake said.


	4. Babysitting Duty

Chapter 4

After years of dreaming of this moment as a kid, it had finally come down to it. I stood in front of the blue cube that could totally change my life.

It was called the _Escafil device_, Ax had corrected me.

We were in Cassie's barn, all six of the group members and I. Ax was fiddling with the Escafil device, and Cassie was feeding the animals. Tobias was naming the birds that were in captivity and their skills and the rest were lounging on hay.

((That one's an osprey. Both Marco and Cassie have osprey morphs. They're fishers and have really good eyes for looking through water. That means you don't have to worry about the glare from sun reflected off of windows and stuff. The one beside it is a turkey vulture, but I don't think you want that one.))

"Not really," I commented. It was pretty ugly.

((Then there's always the-)) he broke off suddenly. ((Hide Ax!)) he snapped, fluttering higher into the rafters. Ax dove behind a stall. An instant later, the door opened.

"It's okay guys," a voice said. "It's just me."

Everyone had tensed at Tobias' warning, but now they all breathed a sigh of relief. ((Don't scare me like that,)) Tobias said, moving back to his spot. I was surprised. Why was he talking to this guy?

The guy at the door was pretty tall with scruffy black hair and somewhat pale skin. He closed the door behind him and looked at me curiously. Ax stepped out from behind the horse stall casually.

"I'm sorry, but I don't believe we've met," the boy said.

"I don't think we have," I said, narrowing my eyes. Who was this guy?

"You must know Erek," Cassie said casually as she continued feeding the animals.

I concentrated. Where had I heard the name Erek before? It was familiar. He must have been a minor character. Someone who couldn't directly participate in the war. But why was that again? Suddenly, it clicked. "You're a pacifist," I said. "The robot."

Erek laughed. "Well, when you put it like that it makes me feel stupid."

"Yeah," Marco laughed. "He's an _android._ Geez!"

I laughed.

"So Erek, what's the bad news?" Marco asked.

I remembered that Erek had never been a bearer of good news.

"A free hork-bajir from the valley has been captured and is being lead to the nearest entrance. If you hurry, you can intercept them." A holographic map appeared on the floor. It was pretty cool. "They're heading for this entrance," he said as a red "x" appeared. They should be about here," he said as a dot appeared. I didn't know the scale, so I didn't know how far they were from the entrance. "Toby Hamee wanted me to tell you immediately. Hurry." Jake nodded, signaling that he understood the map. With that, Erek was gone.

"Okay," Jake said quickly. "Bird morphs, everyone."

Tobias swooped out of the barn. ((I'm scouting. Meet you there.))

"What about her?" Rachel asked, jerking her thumb at me as her face began to change. She was already morphing bird, as well as everyone else.

"Stay behind with her," Jake said.

"Who, mrrrf?" Rachel asked as a beak grew out of her face.

"Yeah, you," Jake said.

((But Jake--)) Rachel began.

((I don't want to hear it. We don't have time to draw straws, just watch Alex.))

In less than two minutes, Rachel and I were the only ones left in the barn. She had demorphed halfway through.

"DAMMIT!" Rachel yelled, kicking a bucket and sending water sprawling across the floor. She glared at me accusingly. "Everyone else is on an important mission and I'm stuck on _baby-sitting_ duty. Where's Erek when you need him?"

"Sorry," I said, not really feeling very sorry.

"Don't give me that crap! You're just happy that you're getting your stupid animal powers! Do you really give two shits about this war? I'll answer that for you: NO! No, you just want to fly, don't you?"

I shrunk back slightly as she shoved her face in mine. Then I regained my confidence and met her gaze with stony eyes. She wouldn't scare me. I couldn't let her.

"Instead of fighting the war like I'm supposed to, I have to take care of little baby Alex here, who might run away if I look away for half a second. You're a burden on all of us!"

"I want to help!" I yelled back. I couldn't help it, tears started to form in the corners of my eyes.

Rachel narrowed her eyes dangerously and lowered her voice. "If you hurt a single one of my friends, my family or their families, I will personally kill you," she said cooly.

"I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want to be part of this team," I said, though I'm pretty sure my voice was shaking. one of the tears slipped and ran down my face. I hoped she wouldn't see it.

"Bull," Rachel said. "And what's this about us being in a book? How do you really know who we are?"

I shook my head. "I told you. Cassie told you. I'm telling the truth. I know all about you because I read the books."

"Really? You know all about me? Do tell, Alex. What do you know about me?"

I was frustrated. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Rachel was supposed to like me. We were supposed to go shopping together and talk about cute guys. This wasn't the Rachel I thought I'd known. "You love to shop," I began. "You're in Gymnastics. Your battle morph is a grizzly. You try to get Cassie, your best friend, to do stuff with you, but she'd rather be mucking the cages here. Melissa, you're other friend, is the daughter of the assistant principal Chapman: a controller. You and Tobias like each other, but war is not a good time to fall in love. Then there's the fact that you resent yourself for being a merciless fighting-addict. Your parents are divorced and your mother's a lawyer." Now that I'd started, I could clearly remember almost everything about Rachel. She had, after all, been my favorite. Rachel waited patiently for me to finish. "You have two sisters: Jordan and Sarah. Your mom's name is Naomi. You're Jake's cousin, and you both have another cousin named…" I trailed off. I didn't want to bring that up. I _definitely_ didn't want to bring that up.

"What's our cousin's name?" Rachel dared me. "Tell me, what's his name?" She seemed strangely unfazed that I knew all this. This was what she wanted to get to. She had wanted me to remember a specific incident…

"Saddler," I said, trying to look into her eyes without causing mine to water nervously. "His name was Saddler."

Rachel broke into a smirk. "Was? Now, why would you use the term was?"

I looked away. Her expression was like someone's nails digging into my skin. It pained me to look at her. That was why they were so suspicious. I remembered now. I didn't want to remember. "He's dead," I answered in barely a whisper. My stomach clenched, remembering the disgusting trick that had been played.

"So you _do _know," Rachel said, resentment dripping from every word. "You know what happened last time we got a new member."

I nodded. Speech was not an option at this point. Realization had struck, and I was in shock. Saddler had been a real person. David was a real person. The war was real. Yeerks were real. This wasn't fiction anymore.

"Then let me say this loud and clear: I am not merciful. You won't get the chance to live like David did. The last thing we need is another David, and I will make sure it doesn't happen."

I shook my head. "It's not going to happen."

"You'd better be sure about that," Rachel snapped, backing away to sit down in the hay. Her eyes never strayed from me, and I grew more and more uncomfortable as time went on. I tried to distract myself by looking at the animals in the cages, but I got goosebumps every time I caught a glance of her steely eyes. Her self-discipline was amazing. Her eyes never moved from me. It went that way for a very long time. So long, in fact, that it was starting to drive me insane.

I tried to break the silence. "What is that bird?" I asked, pointing at a large bird with light brown feathers.

Rachel's eyes moved for a millisecond and then came back to me. Her frown deepened, and I had a feeling that I had said the wrong thing. "That," she replied slowly, "Is a golden eagle."

I didn't know why she seemed so mad about it. "Oh. What's your bird morph?"

"You're the expert. You tell me."

I winced. She wasn't going to give in. "I don't remember."

"Oh, so you don't know everything."

I didn't reply.

"I have a bald eagle morph."

"What about the others?" I asked, looking at the cages.

"Why do you care?" Rachel said.

"I'm just curious," I said defensively.

Rachel sighed and crossed her legs, uncrossing her arms. She pointed to the cage to my left. "That there is a peregrine falcon." The bird inside was small and gray. "Jake's morph." She pointed to the cage above it. "That is an osprey."

"Tobias told me," I said. "It's Marco and Cassie's."

Rachel ignored me. "That is a northern harrier," she said, pointing to my right. "Ax's morph. And there are no red-tailed hawks or bald eagles here for me to show you."

"That's okay, I've seen Tobias and I know what a bald eagle looks like."

"I'd be concerned if you didn't," Rachel said sourly.

I waited, but she said nothing else.

"What morph do you think I should take?" I asked. I hoped that she would warm up to me a little more.

Rachel cocked her head, but not in a kind way. It was more like a slight turn, maybe so she could see the birds better. It wasn't in any way a cute or sweet gesture. "That one," she said, pointing to a brown and white bird. "The hen harrier."

I looked at the bird. It was almost as small as the peregrine falcon. It didn't look very strong, and it was pretty jumpy. But if Rachel thought it was best… "Okay."

"I'm kidding," Rachel said, smiling to herself. "Tobias told me those hen harriers only fly low to the ground. They're not practical and they're wimpy. What you want is that northern goshawk. The one we've got here is female, much bigger than males, and apparently they're pretty fast."

I looked to where she was pointing now. The bird was a dark gray-brown, but every time it moved I could see that its underside was almost completely white. Its eyes were an intense orange. It looked quite a bit bigger than the hen harrier. I liked this bird much more. "I like it," I said, standing up and moving to its cage. It didn't look like anything was wrong with it. "Why is it here?" I asked.

Rachel shrugged. "Don't ask me. It's not my job to keep track. It's probably just recovering from poison or something."

The barn was also different from the way I'd imagined it. The walls were a dark brown, in contrast to the red I had expected. The cages were all lightweight and big enough to give the animal inside sufficient pacing or fluttering room. The ceiling was very high and the rafters were thick.

Was nothing at all the way I'd imagined it?

"Can I use the phone to call my mom?" I asked.

"No," Rachel said flatly.

I fell silent. It seemed that nothing I said was right. If I just kept digging myself holes, I'd be so deep in it soon that I'd be suffocating. It was much better to say nothing at all, I decided.

After another long silence, in which Rachel glared at me like she thought I was going to whip around and try to attack, she finally spoke.

"Well," she sighed, "I guess there's no point in staying here all night. I suppose you get to come to my house so I can keep an eye on you."

Maybe there was hope. It sounded like she was inviting me to sleep over. "Okay," I said. Then she frowned.

"But you don't have the morphing power," she said with fake realization. "It would take hours to walk from here."

Oh. Now I knew what she was getting at. It was a bit manipulative, but I suppose it would work in my best interests too. "If only you knew how to work the cube," I said.

Rachel's eyes lit up. Everything was going according to her plan. "I'll figure it out," she said as she got up and jogged over to where Ax had dropped the cube. She fiddled with it for a while. I walked over, curious to see it up close. "Touch it," she said.

I followed her command. A small shudder went up my arm.

"Abra-Kadabra-Alakazam," Rachel said dramatically. "You're an Animorph. Now go acquire that goshawk." She pointed.

I walked over to the cage, trying to feel confident, but I was a bit unsure. I mean, almost every Animorphs fan as a kid tried to acquire their dog or cat or friend's parrot at some time or another. I wasn't so sure that it would work now. What had changed? Well, it didn't hurt to give it a try.

The northern goshawk did not look very excited about me putting my hand in the cage. As I reached in, it bit me. Hard.

"Hey!" I yelled.

"Hurry up!" Rachel said, returning from the back of the barn where she'd hid the cube.

"It bit me!" I told her.

"So bite it back! Just acquire it already!"

I reached back in and touched the bird. It pulled away and turned to bite me, but I pulled back. The bars of the cage were tight though, so I bruised my hand on the way out. "Ow!"

"Oh my god," Rachel groaned. "Move." She shoved me aside and stuck her hand in the cage, expertly grabbing the wing. The bird attempted to struggle, but quickly became passive. Rachel opened the cage and picked the bird up. "Here," she held it out for me. "Acquire it before the trance wears off."

I put my hand on the bird hesitantly and concentrated. Unlike other times I'd tried, I actually felt something. It's hard to describe. Maybe like if there was water running up your arm, except on the inside. When it finished, I let go and Rachel tossed the bird back in the cage.

"Let's go," she said. "I assume you know how this works."

"Yeah."

"Watch out for the instincts," Rachel said as her skin started to change color.

I concentrated. The first thing to change was my arms. Suddenly they grew way too long for my body. We're talking like, twice the size they normally are. I screamed. I felt bones and organs shifting inside of me and my hair was shrinking. I itched all over, but my arms were useless so I couldn't do anything about it. It was very frustrating. The morphing stopped as I examined the changes.

((Don't scream,)) Rachel scolded me. ((If Cassie's parents are here, we'll get caught. And don't stop morphing. We don't have a lot of time.))

I closed my eyes and kept concentrating, but I was silently freaking out. This was actually happening. I was becoming a bird. There was more fear than I expected as I felt the change. My body changing from the way it had always been.

When I opened my eyes again, my sight was greatly improved. I could hear better too. I snapped my beak experimentally, and noticed that I was hungry. I looked for food. There was the scent of rodents nearby, and I hopped across the ground in the direction of the scent.

((Alex,)) a voice said, but it was just noise. I continued on my path.

They were near all right. I craned my head up and found them on a table. I fluttered up to where they were. Ha! They were caged. They stood no chance.

A shadow blotted out the light. EAGLE! I darted away, but the eagle landed in front of me. NO! It stared at me.

((Alex, get ahold of yourself!)) Alex? Who was Alex?

Oh. Right.


	5. Just Another Perk

Chapter 5

((Are you sure you've got control?)) Rachel asked after a while.

((I'm sure,)) I said.

((Good, because you just wasted ten of our minutes. Let's go.)) She fluttered out the door and took to the sky. I followed as well as I could. It was getting dark out, so my superhuman vision wasn't all that helpful.

Aside from that, flying was amazing. It was like the best amusement park ride ever. The bird's mind didn't see what the big deal was, but I was in awe. Trees that usually towered over my head were far below. Airplanes were absolutely no comparison. Sure, in a plane you were flying, but you weren't _flying._ In an airplane, you don't feel the wind beneath your wings. You don't see _everything_ below you. When you really fly, you have to hold yourself up. The feeling was exhilarating.

It took me a few minutes to realize that we were moving _away_ from the lights of the city. That was expected, of course. ((So I guess we're going to the battlefield.))

((They've been gone a long time,)) Rachel answered. She was right. That had to mean there was a serious problem. Besides, it was stupid to think that Rachel would just miss out on the action. She was, after all, the Rachel I had known since I was four, even though she didn't know me.

It wasn't long before we could see and hear the fight. Barely specks in the distance, Animorph and hork-bajir clashed against each other.

Rachel dove. I followed, feeling like I was on a roller coaster without the constant tapping of the metal or the seat underneath me. I yelled with joy.

((Shut up!)) Rachel yelled. We opened up and landed in the woods half a mile from the fight. ((Demorph,)) she said. I demorphed, however awkwardly. The only clothes I had on were my bra and underwear. It was very embarrassing, but Rachel didn't seem to notice. When I was finished, Rachel was already half grizzly. ((Now remorph and get in the air. Stay out of dracon beam range and help us if we need it.))

I nodded.

((And if this takes a long time, I want you to land at a safe distance and demorph. If you disappear, I'll come after you. Got it?))

I nodded again.

((Good.)) The grizzly turned away and ran into the bushes.

As she ran away I realized that I had just stood in front of a live grizzly with confidence. A real, live bear had stood in front of me and I hadn't cowered or even been afraid at all. See? I was brave. I morphed again, keeping my eyes closed so I didn't have to watch. Then I flew back into the sky. It was hard, and I had to flap a lot to get to a good altitude, but I got there eventually. My wings were sore from the effort. I glided in circles, watching the battle continue in the dark.

**_Rachel_**

I ran into battle, tackling a hork-bajir with a band around its shoulder. After ripping its throat out, I rushed to the aid of Jake, who was being overcome by four hork-bajir.

((Rachel!)) Jake called in surprise as I took down the first controller. ((What are you doing here?))

((Saving your butt,)) I responded.

((Where's Alex?)) he asked.

((Flying,)) I told him as I took down another hork-bajir.

((Rachel!)) Jake exclaimed.

((Let's talk later,)) I said, not all that excited to explain myself in the middle of a battle. I rushed after my own group of controllers, ripping at everything I could find and being ripped at. I had one gash on me for about every two controllers I took down. It was a pretty good deal.

((Guys! I'm down!)) Tobias yelled. I turned to find him on the ground, being attacked as he tried to get back in the air. It was no use, his wing was bent strangely out of shape and he was bleeding all over. He must have been hit on one of his dives.

((I'm coming!)) I called. I tackled the hork-bajir controller and dug my claws into his chest; then turned to Tobias.

((I can't fly!)) he yelped as he tried feebly. Another hork-bajir advanced on him. I snatched him up in my jaws and carried him away. The hork-bajir followed me as I ran until I was at a safe distance from the rest of the fight. Then I dropped Tobias.

((Morph,)) I growled, and turned on the single hork-bajir controller. It was then that he realized that following me alone had not been his most brilliant idea. He backed up slowly.

"Please," he begged. I didn't give him the chance to say more.

I turned back to Tobias. He had morphed Ax and was slowly changing back. ((Rachel, what are you doing here?)) he asked.

((Helping you,)) I said. ((You guys were gone a long time. What's the deal?))

((The free hork-bajir is safe. Toby and her people joined us just a minute ago and managed to take him back. Now our job is to hold these guys off as long as we can so they don't have to worry about being followed. Where's Alex?))

I sighed. He always got right to the point.

((Rachel, Tobias,)) Alex said in a breathy thought-speak voice, ((someone's coming on Rachel's left!))

Tobias and I turned to face the oncoming threat. ((Why is she in morph?)) Tobias growled in thought-speak, not daring to tear his eyes from the supposed enemy's direction.

I didn't answer. I could hear the crashing of bushes faintly, and I pretended to be concentrating too hard to pay attention. After a few seconds, Tobias flapped into the sky, probably trying to get a better angle. I waited as the noise got louder. A tall, husky figure appeared. _Hork-bajir,_ I thought. I waited until it got close enough, then I ran at it.

It wasn't until after I had knocked the hork-bajir controller to the ground and was ready to rip into him when I realized that it wasn't a hork-bajir at all. ((Rachel! Get off me!))

It was Marco.

I stepped off clumsily. ((Well don't sneak up on me then.))

((Let's go. It's a retreat. The controllers are going back down the entrance, but I don't want to be caught back here if they come back with Visser Three.))

((Good idea,)) I said, beginning to demorph. I may be reckless, but I don't want to go one on one with Visser Three. At least I have that much sense.

We morphed into birds and joined the others in the sky.

((Rachel,)) Jake said privately, ((I want to talk to you now.))

I groaned inwardly. ((Yeah?))

((Rachel, I trusted you to watch Alex and keep her safe. You did exactly the opposite.))

I had never heard Jake take such a tone before. It wasn't like him to rag on us for disobeying his orders. Mind you, most of the time we followed them.

((You guys were taking a long time,)) I said. Jake obviously didn't buy it. ((She was driving me up the wall, what else was I supposed to do?))

((What is so horrible about Alex that you couldn't watch her for any more than an hour and a half?)) Jake asked.

I tried to come up with something, but I couldn't quite put my finger on the thing that bothered me about her, aside from the fact that she was a possible threat.

((Rachel, she's not going to bite,)) Jake said. ((You can deal with her.))

He was wrong. I didn't want to spend any time with Alex. She just made me uncomfortable. There was something about her. Maybe it was her voice, the way it was always bouncy and confident, or maybe it was because she was always restless. Whatever it was, it made my personal space bubble grow to enormous proportions when I was around her. She wasn't someone I wanted to be near. ((Jake, I don't know what it is, but I just want to stay away from her.))

((That's too bad Rachel,)) he said. ((She's one of us now, so you're going to have to deal with it.))

Neither of us spoke to each other for the rest of the night. Cassie offered Alex a place at her barn, and Alex happily accepted. I went home, fully ready to sleep.

When I got home and got into bed it was eleven o'clock. Not my latest night, but it was enough to make me tired. I hadn't even closed my eyes when my mother came in.

"There you are, Rachel. I didn't hear you coming in." The tone in her voice hinted of the upcoming disaster.

"I came in a while ago," I lied.

"Really? Because I've been checking your room regularly. The house been locked for two hours."

"Jordan opened the door for me," I lied again.

"No she didn't," she insisted. "Jordan and Sarah went to bed early. Tell me, how did you get all the way up to your window to come in?"

My room was on the second floor. Busted.

"A ladder?" I said lamely.

My mom laughed. "I'm a lawyer," she said, "I can see right through bullshit." I was surprised, my mom rarely swore. "I don't even want to know. You're past your curfew. You're grounded. End of story." She shut the door.

I sighed. Just another perk of being an Animorph.

**Some good questions have been asked, so I think I'll answer them here so everyone can get the answers all together :P**

**McCoy's-Trial-And-Error:** It's interesting and something I can see a majority of us wishing would happen too.  
However, there are a few things I'd like to ask:  
Why did Ax accuse her of being a Yeerk right off? She made no mention of it.  
Why didn't Ax steer clear of her? Did he see her suddenly appear on the beach, or anyone else for that matter, and decide to check it out, thinking maybe the Yeerks were testing out some new matter-transport device? And if so, when he saw her heading that way, why didn't he dodge out of the way or something?  
Why are all the Animorphs in wolf morph, excluding Tobias and Ax?  
Why are the Animorphs even in the forest or on the beach or wherever?  
Why is Ax even on the beach in the first place? Or did she follow the path from the ocean into the forest near the river that flows into the ocean?  
These are just a few things I noticed. Update soon. I am enjoying this, despite the fact that the review is littered with questions.

**This was a review for the first chapter and a good one. I went back and changed it a little since, so it must make a little more sense, but here's the jist of it: The animorphs have just come off of a mission that involved a little running around and being stealthy. Ax assumed that she was a yeerk because he thinks she followed them from the battle. They kind of stumble upon each other while leaving the site of the mission. He didn't see her, because she was hidden by the rocks and bushes. I hope the rest of the questions are clearer now by reading the first chapter. They kind of meet where the beach area merges with the forest, so there are lots of bushes but still plenty of sand.**

**oOKayleeOo: **hey, just letting you know that this is a really good fanfic. but i'm curious who's Mary Sue?

**A good question. I think all the fanfiction veterans here know already and could probably explain it better than I could, but the idea is that it's a character with no flaws that gets along with all the other charachers. What I really want to say here is _WHY_ I used this title. Alex is sort of in a position where she expects to come in and be a Mary Sue. She thinks that things will go just perfectly for her and she'll be accepted as a friend and comrade. As you can see, that's not the case. That's why Becoming Mary Sue seemed to fit better. Mary Sue-ism is her goal, and she's going to use any means possible to make it happen.**

**5h4n3p41n: **Great story, just one thing. When Cassie infests Alex, wouldnt she see how th story ends?

**Actually, that topic is coming up in the next chapter. Cassie didn't look into all the memories and only did a quick scan. So she missed most of the story. Five or ten minutes wasn't quite enough for her to dig all the way in, and since Alex wasn't thinking about it at the time, she didn't think to look that far. At least, not right then.**

**Squito:** Although, you might to watch your animal depictions. Goshawks have red eyes, not orange, and most birds of prey--besides vultures and other carrior birds--have poor senses of smell. Everything else was done extremely well.

**I think that male and female eye colors are different. I just have an animal encyclopedia with little short descriptions of the animals and that's the color it showed there, so I didn't think to look it up anywhere else. I didn't know about the smell thing though, I'll keep that in mind in the future. Thanks :D**


	6. How it ENDS

Chapter 6

It wasn't that I was afraid. It wasn't a sign, or a cruel, angry message Cassie was trying to send me. It wasn't a terrible thing, to sleep in David's old spot. After all, it _was_ the only good place in the barn, the loft. But then, if this wasn't some evil trick, why did I have to try so hard to convince myself that I was safe here? It wasn't like the shadows moving across the walls were really anything to be worried about. I wasn't going to hear the evil thought-speak voice of a boy long trapped as a rat. Nobody was coming to assassinate me or shove an unforgiving yeerk into my mind.

_Right?_

It didn't matter how hard I tried, the shadows never stopped looking like merciless assailants and I never stopped expecting to hear David's desperate voice explode inside my mind. I was terrified of everything, from the creaks of the floorboards to the wind outside to every itch on my body. I didn't even trust my own breathing, for fear that it was hiding other noises from me. It was like the high after a horror movie, when the creepiest scenes are swirling through your head and you tell yourself not to be scared. But even then you're still trembling and wishing you were still a little girl so you could go crawl into bed with your parents and let them tell you it's all going to be okay. Only there, with your parents hugging you as they sleep, do you feel safe.

There were a few issues with that though.

Number one: it _was_ real. I wasn't dreaming, and this wasn't a horror movie. Number two: in this world, my parents might not even exist. So who was I supposed to go crawl in with? The wolves?

I had to calm down. It was just my imagination, after all. No worries, right?

I froze. I could have sworn that I'd heard the door creak. Automatically, I held my breath, waiting for more noises. I began counting off the seconds, focusing all my attention on sound. The silence burned in my ears. Twenty seconds, nothing. Thirty seconds, still nothing. At forty-five seconds, my lungs were screaming for air. _I must have imagined it,_ I thought, taking in a deep, shaky breath.

"Hey Alex."

I bolted upright and whipped around to face the ladder that led up to the loft. There was a figure surfacing there. I pulled my legs up, ready to stand if I had to. How had I not heard the person walking across the floor on the lower level?

"It's just me," Cassie said, stepping onto the floor of the loft. I relaxed. Now that there was someone else here, I wasn't half as scared.

"I know," I said shakily.

"It's okay," Cassie said. "I was like that for the first few nights too."

"Like what?" I asked, playing oblivious.

"Maybe I'm wrong, but I was always really nervous about everything. It was pretty scary, all the what-ifs I came up with. What if they can find me? What if someone's in my room? What if my family's been taken or they know about me? It got worse after we met David, because he knew us _and_ he had the morphing power. What if he's in this room right now? Will he kill me if I fall asleep? Will he kill me if I don't? Things like that. Your mind never stops coming up with ways to scare you. It's like a horror movie, except this time it's real." She looked at me carefully. "But maybe that's just me."

This was good. At least Cassie was on my side. "No, you're right. I'm exactly the same way."

Cassie smiled. "It's scary. It took me a long time to figure out how to calm myself down. But I promise, you're safe here."

The books were right, Cassie always knew just what to say.

"Thanks, Cassie," I said. "It's just… Well, at least you guys have your families here. You're living at home. Maybe Tobias isn't, but he's never actually had a real family before, so he never really knew anything else. But my family might not even exist here, as far as we know, and I might never get back. All my friends, all my stuff, everything is gone. It's so… hard. You couldn't possibly understand."

Cassie sat beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. "You're right, I couldn't possibly understand unless I was you. But Ax might."

"Ax?" I asked.

"Sure. He's in almost the exact same situation. He's stranded here, the only free andalite on earth. His home is trillions of miles away, with all his stuff and his friends and his family," Cassie pointed out. She had carefully avoided the notion that neither Ax nor I might live long enough to find a way home.

"Yeah, but he's…"

Cassie waited expectantly, a calm, passive look on her face. Most people would say stuff like that just to defend the group, but Cassie genuinely cared. She wasn't angry with me for telling her that I was worst off, she just wanted me to talk to Ax because she hoped it would comfort me.

"He's an alien. And he's in the military. And his brother is Elfangor," I said.

"That doesn't mean he doesn't miss his home," Cassie said.

"And I think he hates me," I admitted.

"I don't think he does," Cassie said.

"Really?" I asked, doubtful.

"I think he's only a bit worried. You know so much about us, and yet you've never met us. Maybe if you share a bit more about yourself with him he'll open up."

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem," she said. "You know me, peacemaker Cassie."

I winced. She must have gotten that from my mind earlier. She seemed really upset by it, like it was a bad thing. I felt like I had to say something to comfort her. "Without you, the group would fall apart," I said. "You're the glue that holds them together." Someone must have said the exact same thing in one of the books. I reminded myself that I couldn't use their lines anymore, because here was the one place I was sure to get caught for plagiarizing a joke.

"Thanks Alex," Cassie said. "I guess everyone was too tired to think it over much tonight, but I just realized a minute ago that you aren't known to controllers. That means you could sleep over at my place for a few nights, then Rachel's until we figure out a permanent place for you to stay."

"Thank-you," I said, feeling very grateful indeed. A bed would definitely beat a bundle of hay any day. We climbed down from the loft and stood on the floor of the barn. On the other hand, the word permanent stung a little. But then I reminded myself that this was what I had wanted: adventure.

"The only problem is what I'm going to tell my parents. It's a little late for them to approve of a surprise sleepover party. Not to mention it's a school night. I wanted to come up with a story you approved of. Can I tell them there was a family emergency or something and your parents left on a trip?"

I thought about that story. It sounded good, but there were some flaws with it. "But your parents will expect my parents to be contacting me. And they may want to talk to them. Then we have to make up an emergency good enough for my parents to run out and leave me behind…"

"You're right. That is a bit complicated."

"Let's keep it simple. My parents have been fighting. Um… let's say my dad is a binge drinker and I need a place to stay while my mom tries to get him help."

Cassie frowned. "Are you sure you're okay with that? I don't want my parents to have a bad impression of yours."

"Ha!" I scoffed. "Our parents will never meet anyway. I live in a completely different state than you, remember? And I won't be talking about my real parents, just made-up ones."

"Okay then," Cassie said. "But you should keep your voice down. You're talking pretty loud."

"Sorry."

Cassie stood up and offered her hand to help me up. I took it gratefully and we climbed down the ladder to the floor of the barn. Outside the door I heard the crunch of gravel under a boot and began searching for a hiding place. Cassie grabbed my wrist with amazing precision. "Stay right here. I'll do most of the talking, just smile and nod." Her voice was more assertive than I had expected to hear from her. Besides that, "just smile and nod" has got to be the stupidest order anyone could give. I decided not to take her literally, because everyone knows that in the world of books and movies, following orders that well has a tendency to go tragically wrong.

A dark-skinned, middle-aged man entered the barn. "Cassie! There you are! It's nearly midnight, you really should be in bed." Then he noticed me. "Oh, hello. I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met."

I looked at him with a smile, waiting for Cassie to step in. When she didn't introduce us immediately, I stepped forward and shook his outstretched hand. "We haven't. I'm Alex. Are you Cassie's father?"

Cassie shot me a concerned look. She was worried that I'd mess things up. It was okay though, I had everything under control.

"Yes, I am," he said. "I haven't seen you around before. Are you new?"

"Yeah," Cassie cut in, "she just moved here and she needs a place to stay for a few nights. Can she stay here?"

I knew right away that Cassie's dad wasn't about to ask why I needed a place to stay. Instead, he said, "Of course she can. There's always room at our house. Where are you from?"

I swallowed. _Think fast,_ I told myself. "Vegas," I said quickly. That sounded about right. It was a big place, hard to track people down in it, and I'd been there once on vacation, so I could answer questions about it.

"Ah," Cassie's dad said. "Big place, Vegas is. We went there last summer."

"Two summers ago," Cassie corrected.

"Right," Cassie's dad said with a smile. "Well, come inside. The smell in the barn must be killing you." He turned to walk out of the barn.

"Last summer we were busy fighting the yeerks," Cassie said quietly before we followed her dad out of the barn and into the house.

We set up a mattress for me beside Cassie's bed. She leant me a pair of pajamas. It was a good thing that they were really big on her, because they fit me perfectly. I don't usually like to mention it, but I'm not really a petite girl. Not really big or anything, just not small.

We got into bed silently.

"Cassie?" I whispered after a few minutes.

I had expected to hear a sleepy mumble, but instead I got a completely awake, "Yes?"

"I don't think anyone likes me," I said.

"Why?"

"Because Tobias avoids me and Jake is hostile. Marco said no to me coming into the group and Rachel just plain hates me."

"Hmmm," Cassie said knowingly. "And you used to feel like you'd fit right in with us when you were a kid."

She must have seen that when she was wrapped around my brain. Or maybe she'd just guessed. After all, she was supposed to be really good with people. "Yeah," I admitted.

"Hmmmm," she said again.

"Do you like me?" I asked, afraid of the answer but at the same time, knowing that if it was hurtful, she'd lie.

"Yeah," she said. "I don't know you that well yet, but I think you're a really great person."

Coming from the person who had seen inside my head, I was inclined to take that as a massive compliment.

"What are you guys going to give me for a battle morph?" I whispered.

"I don't know," Cassie replied.

I wanted to suggest something. If anyone would help me get a really cool morph, it was Cassie. She would try to help me fit in. She was my key to making up with everyone else. She could help me. The problem was, I wasn't completely sure what I wanted.

"What kinds of animals do you like?" she asked, almost reading my mind.

"I dunno. I always thought I'd get something that was a cat. Like a panther, or a leopard or a lio—" I stopped myself, realizing that I had just said something that might have been fatal, had Rachel or Jake or just about anyone else been there.

"A lion," Cassie finished.

"I—I was just, you know, brainstorming," I said, flushed.

Cassie looked at me in the dark. The only thing that let me see her was a small sliver of light from the hallway that came from under the door. Her expression was not hard, but it was far off, upset. She didn't want to see me ousted, hurt, trapped or even killed, but she wanted even less to put the group in danger. I was causing her pain by being here. She was probably my only ally right now, and she wasn't even sure if that was a good thing or not. I felt guilty.

"I'm sorry."

Cassie's expression softened. She was sympathetic now. "It's not your fault you ran into Ax," she said. "And we're grateful that you want to help us, we really are."

"I promise I'm not like David," I blurted.

Cassie looked surprised.

"I won't attack anybody, I wouldn't. You guys are like, the greatest. You've been through so much, you've been so brave. When I was little, I felt like I knew you guys, like we would be best friends." My eyes started to water and I scolded myself. _You stupid crybaby,_ I thought, _Stop it_. "David was horrible. He was always a bad person. He wanted to steal and hurt you guys. I would never. I mean, I've loved you guys since I was a little kid."

"Wow," Cassie said after a pause. "It must be so weird. I can't imagine meeting a character from a book."

"Or even a T.V. show," I commented. "Do you guys have Power Rangers over here?" Over here. Like I was in a new country, not a book. Man, I must have been nuts.

"Yeah," Cassie said.

"Like meeting them, not the normal T.V. actors, but the real people.

Cassie was silent. It was a long silence, and my thoughts went back to David.

"I wouldn't ever do anything like that," I said. "Especially not what he did to Saddler."

She stared at me.

I stared back. It was a long time before either of us spoke. She closed her eyes and for a while I thought that she had gone to sleep.

"I tried to quit," she said quietly. "I left. And I let a yeerk into my head of my own free will."

It was random. "I know," I said.

"How many people have read these books?" she asked. Her eyes opened to look at me again.

"Millions," I said without thinking. "Everyone loves them."

Cassie's eyes glazed. "To think," she said slowly, "that many people know who I am."

"Yeah. They know who all of you are. They know about everything."

"Did the story end?" she asked. It was just curiosity, wonder. Obviously she hadn't looked through my mind thoroughly.

I swear, for a minute my heart stopped beating. I knew how it ended. I had read all the books after all. I knew that they had needed to take their parents to the hork-bajir valley to keep them safe. I knew that it had become open war. I knew that Marco saved his mom and that Tom had taken the morphing cube. I knew that it had been Cassie's fault. I knew that they made a whole new team of morphers. They went to the military. They made one last final stand where they won.

_And Rachel died_.

My eyes were watering again. I was silent for a long time, eyes closed, hoping that Cassie would think I had fallen asleep.

"Alex?" she asked.

I gave a sleepy sort of mumble and turned over, hoping that my acting was good enough. Praying that it would do.

"Okay," she said. She didn't buy the act, not for a second. "But sooner or later, you need to tell us. You have to tell us what happens."

**A/N: I'm not sure if I've already mentioned this, but Cassie did only a very quick scan of Alex's memories. She didn't have nearly enough time to see them all. Therefore, she knows only a little of the story after the point they're at. To tell the complete truth, I'm not yet sure what that point is, so any suggestions are totally welcome. Please review!**


	7. HuNgRy

**Disclaimer: Wow, this is late... but if I were Applegate, Alex probably would have been in the books and you'd all be writing about her... Bwahahaha.**

Chapter 7

I was awake for a very long time after that. It wasn't that I was scared anymore, I had overcome that the moment I was brought into the sleepover atmosphere. Now I was completely awake because I was trying to figure out how to use what I knew to my advantage. How was I supposed to tell them what happens?

One thing was for sure: they definitely wouldn't like me if I told them the truth. How was I supposed to tell them that their worst fears would be realized? How was I supposed to tell Rachel? Heck, how was I supposed to tell Tobias?

Eventually I fell into a restless sleep.

When I woke up, the fragments of a nightmare were slipping away like water between my fingers. I was sweating and shaky, and I found myself holding my shoulders as if my arms were about to fall off.

"Good morning," Cassie said. On her clock the numbers read six-thirty.

I rubbed my eyes sleepily. "Why are we up so early?" I asked.

"I thought you'd want a shower," Cassie said, "then we need to catch the bus."

I yawned. "Can't we fly?" I said quietly.

She looked at me. "Of course not."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because I'd rather not do any more lying than I have to," she said a litle more harshly than I had expected from her. "Towels are in the hall closet," she said shortly, and I didn't ask anything else.

I showered and dressed in the same clothes I had worn the last two days. We ate breakfast in near silence. Usually I'm a very chatty person, but I felt like Cassie was above me, like she was a queen that I shouldn't speak to unless she invited me to. That didn't stop me from feeling increasingly uncofortable with every passing moment of silence. I had expected Cassie and I to talk a lot about animals and go horseback riding together. I wanted to morph into as many animals as I could, but here I was, going to school with Cassie, by bus nonetheless.

Only once we were at the bus stop did Cassie actually say anything to me.

"Tobias will meet you when we get into town. I'll tell everybody that you're my friend from Vegas and you're just catching a ride into town. Follow Tobias and he and Ax will take you shopping. You'll need some more clothes and we have a stash of emergency money."

I already knew how this would turn out. Funny, I remembered more and more about the story the longer I spent around Cassie. It was like she might have been giving me hints, though I'm sure it was really just clusters of memory and every time I was reminded of one thing, it brang an entire mental picture to mind. In this instance, the word "mall" brought up an image of Aximili screaming something about cinnamon buns in the food court. I smiled. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" I asked.

Cassie smiled for the first time that morning. "It's so weird that you just _know_." The bus came around the corner and started it's seemingly snail-paced voyage to where we stood. Cassie had an amused look on her face. "Of course it's a bad idea, just try to keep him away from the food court."

"Sounds easy enough."

Cassie raised an eyebrow. "You'd be surprised."

The bus slowed and stopped in front of us and Cassie smiled at the driver as she got on. The driver didn't so much as look at me, even when I tripped over her bag that was partially tucked under her seat.

It was strange to see all these people and know that they interacted with THE Animorphs on a daily basis and didn't even realize it. I sat down beside Cassie in an empty seat.

"Don't do anything to attract attention," she hissed under her breath just before the people in the seat in front of us turned around. They were very obviously a couple.

"Hey Cassie," the girl cheerily. She noticed me and stuck her hand over the seat to shake mine. "I'm Laura," she said. Her boyfriend just smiled quietly. He had almost an air of impatience and superiority about him.

"Alex," I said, taking her hand. "Nice to meet you." I found myself stealing glances at her boyfriend, who had quite obviously lost interest in the conversation and was now looking around the bus as if he were looking for someone.

"So are you new here?" Laura asked.

"No," Cassie said. "She's just visiting."

"From Vegas," I said helpfully.

"Cool," she said. "Never been, but I've heard so much about it."

"Yeah, it's a pretty crazy place," I said.

"Are you gonna come to school today then?" she asked.

"No," I recited, "I'm just catching a ride into town."

"Cool. Hey, you know after school's out you guys should come by the Sharing."

My heart gave a jolt. She was in the Sharing? Did that mean?

"We'll be sure to," Cassidy said after realizing that I wasn't about to talk.

Laura continued. "You really should join. I bet there's a branch in Vegas. I mean, as great as being just a normal member is, being a full member is just amazing! We get to go on these trips to all sorts of cool places." She rattled on about how great it was for the rest of the bus ride, and if I hadn't known what it really was, I probably would have been ready to join.

Fortunately, I did know. It made me feel nauseous. I hadn't thought about it before, but now as I looked around the bus, I realized how many of them might be battling with a yeerk at that moment, struggling to tell their friends what was really happening. If I'd had to guess, I'd have thought it was her boyfriend that was a yeerk, but as the conversation went on and it was mentioned that she was upset about him not wanting to have anything to do with the Sharing, the truth became obvious. There was an invasion going on. A real one. There was no more "it's just a book" nonsense. The human race was really being enslaved one by one. A sick image flashed across my mind. I saw a deserted Earth, with none of the majesty of rainforests or any forests at all. People were there, in cages they would never hope to escape, and every once in a while, a hork-bajir would come in and grab a struggling person. It wouldn't pay any notice to the person's screamed insults and feverent attempts to come loose from its grasp. And when it reached the pool, it would grab the back of their head mercilessly and—

"Alex?" Cassie asked. She was standing in front of me. I had been so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn't even noticed that the bus had stopped and emptied. "Are you coming?"

That had never actually happened to me before. You would have thought I had noticed that the bus had emptied, but I didn't. It was the kind of thing you read about or saw in the movies but never actually experienced. But I did.

((Okay Alex, to your left,)) a voice said. I was startled, but I think I did a pretty good job of covering it up.

"Bye Cassie," I called and turned to my left. I looked up and after shielding my eyes I could see Tobias floating far above. I remembered my experience flying in the night and thought about how much better it would be during the day when I scarcely had to try to stay up. I felt giddy as I followed the circling bird to a patch of trees at the edge of the schoolgrounds. Here, Tobias told me to stay where I was while he disappeared. I was a little anxious as to what was going on, but it's not like I could yell up to him and ask.

I waited there, slowly realizing how creepy it was to be standing in the forest, surrounded by the trees all alone. I must have waited five minutes when I heard the sound of laughter and turned to find two guys approaching. One of them had dark brown, nearly black hair and was really tall, while the other was only of average height and had semi-long, unruly blonde-brown hair. He was the one laughing, while the other guy looked at him as if he couldn't figure out what was so funny. Both of them were dressed in something from the Gap. Like something their girlfriends would dress them in.

"Hi," I said.

The guy that was laughing acknowledged me with a wave. When he finished, he said, "Let's go."

"Okay," I said slowly, before realizing who he actually was. Now I understood the clothing thing. One of their girlfriends _had_ dressed them. "Oh, um, Aximili?" I asked the taller one.

"Yes Alex? Ecks… ex."

Now there was no doubt. "I'm um… sorry for yesterday." I was looking to make friends, like Cassie suggested.

"Sorry for what? Did you do something wrong? Sum. Sum theeeng."

I laughed, unable to help myself. But when I was done laughing and Aximili was still looking at me expectantly, I didn't really know what to say. Eventually I found my voice. "You know, about your brother. I'm um, sorry for saying that."

Aximili only smiled at me, and I wasn't sure if it was a forgiving smile or a fake one.

By now we had exited the bushes and were heading towards the mall. I walked beside Aximili, with Tobias standing on the opposite side. Tobias wasn't as cute as I expected him to be, but Aximili far exceeded my expectations. His human morph was more than gorgeous. I decided that it was time to use some more of Cassie's advice.

"Aximili," I said.

"Phillip," Tobias corrected. "His name is Phillip."

I didn't even know what he was talking about, but I followed his lead anyway.

"Right. Phillip, do you like the beach?" I asked.

'Phillip' seemed puzzled. "I do not dislike it. Disssss…" he continued for several seconds, making a hissing noise like a snake. "Why? Aye. I."

"I just think it's a really pretty place."

"You did not seem very content when I met you there. Con. Tent. Tuh. Muh. Eet. You. Oooo—"

"Phillip, stop it," Tobias said firmly.

"All right," Ax said. "Lll." It was only a short sound, but Tobias cut him off with a sharp look and a quick glance at me. Aximili understood this time. He wasn't to embarrass himself in front of me, lest I stop fearing him.

It didn't matter how many words he played with, because as soon as I remembered what his cold blade felt like pressing against the skin of my neck, well, I wasn't exactly up for that again.

"Well no duh," I answered, "Of course I wasn't content. I was lost and ran into an alien. You wouldn't be overjoyed either."

I'm not sure, but I thought I heard him say something to the effect of, "As a matter of fact…"

I wasn't exactly surprised when we reached the mall and it looked nothing like what I had expected. Now at least I had enough sense to know that everything wasn't going to be the way I'd seen it in my head.

Aximili wasn't as excited about making friends with me as I'd hoped. In a moment of sheer desparation, I said, "I'm hungry."


	8. The WallyWorld Blues

**A/N: Sorry about my long and unexplained absence. To make a long story short: Stephenie Meyer. I got a little addicted to all her books P But I'll be posting regularly now, so Enjoy!**

Chapter 8

I wasn't positive, but I think Tobias was beginning to regret voting me into the group.

We were in the food court and I was starting to feel the need to tell Aximili to "act normal." He was at a point where he reminded me of a puppy that could see a treat clearly in its owner's hand and had begun to shake excitedly. It would have been funny, had he been joking.

"What a wonderful scent!" Aximili said. He was so excited that he wasn't even playing with words anymore.

"Um, Aximili—" I started.

"There it is!" he yelled and broke into a run. I cried out in surprise, but made no move to grab him. In my mind, he was still an andalite and his tail could still kill me faster than anything. His run was awkward and sure enough, he tripped and fell flat on his face in seconds.

I couldn't help but laugh.

"Phillip!" Tobias hissed. He grabbed the back of Aximili's sweater roughly. "If you don't act normal, I'm not going to buy you anything," he threatened. I had a feeling that he wouldn't have been so hard on him if I wasn't there.

I walked into the Cinnabon and ordered one for each of us. Tobias paid the cashier. We received them quietly and walked to an empty table.

Tobias and I shared an anxious glance as Aximili picked up the cinnamon bun and took a greedy bite. He made a moaning noise that was creepy in just about every way.

I glanced once again at Tobias, but he was glaring at me. I tried to reassure myself that he always glared, but I wasn't totally convinced that this wasn't another 'special glare.'

"I'm sorry!" I said.

Tobias just shook his head as Aximili took another massive bite out of the cinnamon bun. It only took him three more before it was finished, and he started looking around again. I hadn't started mine yet, and he eyed it closely before eyeing Tobias'.

"Have it," Tobias said, shoving his saran-wrapped treat across the table. Aximili unwrapped it and wolfed it down.

By this time, I had gotten the idea and started to eat mine before he could turn to me. Aximili looked at the thing in my hands resentfully and opted to eat the plastic wrap instead.

Tobias and I reached to grab it at the same time and brushed hands. A tingle went up my spine, and I glanced at him, but he seemed not to have noticed. I had withdrawn, and Tobias carefully pulled the stuff out of Aximili's mouth.

"You're worse than a toddler," I commented with a laugh.

Tobias set the slobbery plastic wrap down on the table. He spoke with as much patience as possible. "You can't eat that stuff."

"But how else—"

"You don't," Tobias interrupted. "You just don't."

Aximili didn't seem to notice the stern note in Tobias' voice. "More?" he asked greedily.

"We need to save our money," Tobias said.

Aximili looked directly at me and the last two bites of my cinnamon bun. I handed it to him. "Here," I said with a full mouth.

It was seconds before he had eaten that as well and was looking at the slobbery plastic wrap on the table longingly. There were still a few bits of icing stuck to it.

Tobias took this as a signal and stood up. "Let's go," he said. I followed his example.

Aximili began to quiver a little, standing up and craning his neck to look around the food court. He seemed to be looking for somebody, and Tobias started to say something. Instead of listening, Aximili broke off and bolted to a group of people sitting four tables away. The food court was full of chatter, but I didn't have to hear him to know what he said. He held out his hands to a little girl eating a cinnamon bun and asked "May I have, aaaave, your delicious treat? Tuh reat?"

Tobias rushed over to grab him, but I was enjoying the show far too much to do anything but stand there and double over with laughter as Aximili flitted between tables, asking for food as Tobias chased him around. When Tobias had finally caught the overwhelmed andalite and brought him back, my eyes were tearing up and I was gasping for breath. The first little girl he had asked still had a terrified expression on her face and was clutching the little piece of cinnamon bun that Aximili had not managed to rip from her hands.

I opened my mouth to say something clever as they approached, but then settled for just laughing again.

"You could have been more helpful," Tobias said.

"I'm, s-s-s-s—hahaha!" I couldn't even apologize. I just couldn't help laughing at Aximili, who was still looking around for more food despite Tobias' grasp on his upper arm.

We walked away from the food court and through the rest of the mall and I had to keep stifling more outbursts of laughter at the memory of the episode. Finally I found a distraction.

"Oh! Bootlegger!" I said, pointing. Before either of them could object, I rushed to the display window to examine the clothes on the mannequins. Before they could catch up, I had already chosen a very cute tee one of the figures was wearing and I dove into the store in a determined search for it. I was a master shopper, so it took me only a total of thirty seconds to find it and dig out my size.

Tobias and Aximili arrived and I put the shirt against my front and raised my eyebrows at them. "What do you think?" I asked.

Tobias smiled a little, but kept to his mission by pulling out the price tag and holding it up for me to see.

"Twenty-five bucks," I said. "Not bad."

"We don't have enough money to shop here, Alex. We only have about a hundred and we have to get you more than one shirt," Tobias reasoned.

I frowned. "Where can we get cheaper clothes?"

"Wal-Mart."

I blinked.

"We're going to shop at Wal-Mart?" I asked.

"It's better than here."

"Um, no. No, it's not. It's full of junk."

"We don't have enough money, Alex. Do you want to walk out of this store with one shirt and one pair of jeans or do you want to walk out of Wal-Mart with three different pairs?"

"Whatever," I said. "But can we at least get this one shirt? It's so cute!"

Tobias rolled his eyes with some concentration. "Whatever."

So we bought the shirt and went to Wal-Mart. I was not excited about shopping at the low-grade store, but I managed to pick out a good five pairs of jeans in my size, some shirts and sweaters and a bathing suit as a morphing outfit. I tried them on and picked and chose for a couple of hours until we had the perfect four outfits.

I don't know how we afforded all that stuff. I guess we had a little more money than Tobias had said. But we went through the checkout and I noticed Tobias using a credit card. I started to wonder how a bird pays off a credit card bill.

"Is that yours?" I asked before he tucked it into his pocket. We were walking out the doors, Aximili carrying all the bags. He seemed to like the idea that his arms were so strong.

"No," Tobias said.

"Whose?"

"It's Rachel's," he said.

"Really?" I asked. "Your girlfriend lets you use her credit card? Wow!"

Tobias gave me a sideways look. "We're not exactly boyfriend and girlfriend," he said.

"You're not?" I asked, wondering what changed. Had my presence in the story already made a huge difference. "What happened?"

He seemed uneasy. "Nothing really happened. We're just, not."

"Haven't you kissed?" I asked. I didn't really remember when in the books they had kissed.

Tobias didn't speak.

"Well you love her," I said. "You have to."

Aximili was blissfully ignoring our conversation, choosing to talk to himself about the 'ridiculous structures' and 'weird transportation' that humanity chose.

Tobias still kept quiet. I was very wrapped up in the worry that something was terribly wrong.

"You have to be with her. If you're not…" I tried to think about what horrible things may have happened had they not been in love. "If you're not…"

I stopped walking, hoping to put all my energy into this one thing. It was the most vital. Tobias was the thing that kept Rachel grounded. She'd said that before, I was sure. Tobias was her lifeline. And without Tobias…

"She'll be lost," I said. "She loves you. She needs you."

Tobias had turned around to face me. I grabbed his shoulders, desperate to get my message to him. "You need her."

He looked a little shocked. "I know," he said. "You're right, I guess. I just don't like to talk about it."

There were tears in my eyes. I wiped them away. I didn't want things to end the way they ended, no matter how much Rachel hated me. She couldn't do this to Tobias.

"Alex," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Is there something you need to tell us?"

"Like what?" I asked.

"Like something that you know and we don't. Something we _should_ know."

Aximili now directed his attention to the two of us. I had to give him credit, he knew when to be serious about something.

"I don't know," I said truthfully.

"Well we have a meeting at Cassie's tonight, and I think it would be the perfect time to let us know if there's something on your mind."


	9. REAL DRAMA

**WARNING: If you haven't been spoiled enough already, this chapter on contains MAJOR SPOILERS. **

Chapter 9

When we were deep in the woods, Ax and Tobias gave me the bathing suit and told me to go change. I'll have to say, it didn't look fantastic on me, but that was becoming less of a factor. I came back and tucked my other clothes in one of the shopping bags. Ax demorphed and took the bags. To make it easier on him, Tobias and I hung two of the bags on his tail, which was three or four times stronger than his arms.

((I will bring these to the meeting place,)) he said.

"Good," Tobias said. "See you there."

Ax took off and Tobias demorphed. I morphed the goshawk and we took off.

Flying during the day was AMAZING. It was beyond words. Like, try going on the fastest roller coaster ride of your life, then remove the seats and the sheer terror of being up so high and unable to fly. That's what it was like. What a rush!

I tried diving the second I was up high enough.

((IIIIIEEEEEEE!!)) I screamed as I plummeted toward the ground. I pulled out and caught a thermal back up to where Tobias was. ((That. Is. So. Awesome! You don't even know how awesome that was!)) I yelled.

((I know,)) Tobias said.

I felt a little embarrassed at the idiocy of my comment, but I pretended not to notice. ((That's great! How do you even go back on the ground after something like that?))

((I'm never eager to, I assure you.))

((Wow. And I don't even have to try to stay up. You know, I had a dream once about being an Animorph. I think I morphed some kind of hawk, maybe a red-tail. And I always had to fight to stay in the air. It was tough. Like, if I didn't flap continuously, I would hit the ground. But in my dream I wasn't this high up.))

Tobias glanced at me.

((Were we in this dream?))

I tried to remember. ((No, I don't think so.))

((Do you know what the last mission we did was?))

((No,)) I confessed.

((Well, what happened in the latest book you read?))

I was silent. Tobias seemed to know he had cornered me and I felt a sort of satisfaction in his silence. I thought hard. After what felt like a long time but was probably only fifteen seconds, I answered him.

((David.))

((You're a liar,)) Tobias said.

((Why?)) I asked.

((Because Cassie got the yeerk morph a long time after the whole David thing.))

Again, he had me cornered. I tried to go with it. ((Oh yeah. I'm sorry. I haven't read them in such a long time. I kind of get it mixed up. What was the last mission you went on then? The last really big thing.)) I was proud of myself for such a convincing lie.

But Tobias wasn't convinced. ((I asked you first,)) he muttered.

I didn't say anything.

((Fine. Do you know Taylor?))

I spent a few moments concentrating. ((No not really.))

((She's a controller with a prosthetic arm,)) Tobias said with a strange tone in his voice. What was wrong with him? He seemed insulted by the idea of her.

Suddenly I knew why. ((Oh,)) I said. ((Taylor.))

((Well, she tried to convince us that she was a member of the yeerk peace movement so we could make an attack on the real peace movement. Visser Three put her up to it. She died in the explosion.))

((You dug tunnels,)) I remembered. ((You were a Taxxon.))

((That's right.))

((And Cassie was the only one who refused to do it.))

((Because she didn't trust Taylor. Yeah,)) Tobias wasn't excited to admit this lack of good judgement in the case of Taylor.

I could remember that book. It was number forty-three. I couldn't remember what forty-four was, but forty-five was the one where Marco's dad found out. The series was nearing its end. There was a sharp pain of sadness in me as I realized that Rachel only had months to live now.

((How much more have you read?)) Tobias asked me.

I was worried now, not wanting to give away any more right now.

((More than that,)) I said, sentencing myself.

((How much more?)) he asked.

I wasn't sure how to answer him in a way that wouldn't annoy him. But at this point I had decided to tell them as much as I could manage to say. ((Can I tell everyone at once?)) I asked, trying to hide the hint of panic in my voice.

((Sure,)) Tobias said.

We were quiet for a long time, and I began to wonder what Tobias was thinking. Was he guessing at what I refused to tell him? How would he react to what I was going to tell them? Oh God, he was going to hate me. They were all going to hate me. How was I supposed to say it?

I tried to calm myself. Start at the beginning. Marco's dad was going to help discover Z-space. He was going to be captured. Marco was going to go in and save him. They were going to get away. And Marco was going to move in with Toby Hamee and the rest of the free hork-bajir. But what was before that? Why couldn't I remember?

((We've got a good couple hours before the meeting. Jake should be out of school soon and he said he wants to get you a battle morph right away. We can go meet Ax and get you some clothes and then you can go with Jake to the Gardens.))

((Okay,)) I said. And it was so. Tobias and I met Ax, I got dressed, and we walked to Jake's house.

I had been thinking hard about what morph I wanted. Desperately, I wanted a lioness. It had always been one of my favourite animals, but it was definitely doubtful that it would be an option. But I figured that one of the big cats would definitely be a good idea. So what then? A panther? Maybe a leopard or a cheetah? To tell the truth, I didn't actually know much at all about any of them.

It was funny how I'd already forgotten my promise.

"Alex!" Jake said when he opened the door.

I grinned widely. "Ready to go to the Gardens?" I asked with a cheesy, hands-clasped-behind-my-back-and-arms-straightened-while-on-tiptoe pose. I rocked back onto my heels and then back to my toes again. It was a sort of nervous thing for me that I tried way too hard to act cute.

"Yeah," he said, stepping out the door and closing it behind him. I hadn't expected him to be ready to go, but apparently he was. He began to lead me to the bus stop.

We were waiting alone, and I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. I tried to make small talk, like "how was your day?" and other things of the sort but Jake gave one-word answers. He was obviously preoccupied with some other matter. I was almost relieved when he decided to confront me with it.

"Cassie thinks that you know more than you're telling us," he said bluntly.

By this point, I was done being nervous about it. I'm not sure why, but Jake didn't feel as intimidating as Tobias and Aximili did. "Did you all just decide to try to wear me down today or something?" I asked.

"No," Jake said earnestly, "why, have Tobias and Ax asked yet?"

"Yeah," I said. "And I've already said that I'd tell you guys everything at the meeting."

"Everything," Jake confirmed.

The bus arrived in all of its crowded glory, and I was taken aback when I saw someone wave from the back.

Marco.

"Marco said he wants to come with us," Jake said.

I nodded.

Jake and I headed over and sat down beside Marco. He grinned widely.

"Hey, Alex!" he said. "How was shopping?"

I decided not to say too much about it. "Fun," I admitted.

He grinned even wider. I had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew what I was neglecting to say aloud. "So, how many fans exactly _do _I have? I must be a total superstar where you come from."

I grinned back, glad to be out of hot water if only for a minute. "Oh, _millions_. Everybody loves you, Marco. You're the fun in the books. Comic relief and genius at the same time."

He laughed a little shallowly. "Yeah, but what about my _stunning_ good looks?"

I decided to tease him a bit. "_Stunning_ good looks, huh? Hmmmmm..." I put a finger on my lips, pretending to search my memory. "I don't remember any mention of good looks. Perhaps in the dialogue..."

"Whose dialogue?" he asked eagerly.

I pretended to think hard again and he grinned in amusement. "Ah!" I said. "I remember where I heard that now! _Your_ dialogue!"

"Ha ha ha," he said. "What else do you know about me?"

Marco was attractive, I had to say. Plus he was actually kind of charming. I found myself trying to avoid eye contact. It felt too intimate every time I saw his dark amber eyes looking into mine. "Well," I glanced over at Jake, but he seemed to have completely zoned out. There were iPod earphones in his ears and he was staring out the windows. "You're smarter than you act. And you care a lot." An image of a man's head being thrust into the slime, being watched through a glass window flashed through my mind. 

"You're braver than you act too." Then I remembered some more of that particular story and added, "You're a terrible driver."

Marco laughed heartily. "I've gotten better," he said defensively, touching his hand to his chest in mock offense.

It was my turn to laugh. "Not by much."

"How would you know?"

"I just do," I said, feeling like I'd trapped myself again. But Marco didn't pounce like I had expected he would.

"Well," he said as-a-matter-of-factly, "it's clear who my favourite character is. Who's yours?"

I paused for a moment. I wanted to be sure that I answered truthfully. I was surprised to find that things still hadn't changed. "Rachel," I said sheepishly.

"Why?" Marco asked.

I really should have thought about why he was asking. I should have thought about what he wanted to know from me. Instead I just answered. "She's so brave and she works really hard, and she's really pretty. I guess I'm just really jealous of her."

"Meh, of course she's prefect. She's just a character after all."

"All right," I said, getting stealthy. "Aside from Marco, who's your favourite character?"

Marco lowered his voice a little so that nobody overheard. "Same as you probably, but for different reasons."

"Why? Because you liiiiiike her?" I asked, poking his shoulder.

His cheeks turned a little red but he brushed it off. "Nah, because she has so much conflict. I mean, Ax fights for his pride as an andalite. Tobias fights because heck, what else is he going to do? Jake fights for Tom and even Marco fights for his mom. Cassie fights because she cares too much to let the innocent get hurt but Rachel? Rachel fights for the fight."

I looked at him in surprise. He was talking about them like I used to. Just like characters from a book. Like in English class when you have to identify what kind of character it is or find the climax. I found it much easier to talk like this.

"That's true," I said.

"All of us have something to gain by the war being over."

"Really?" I asked. "I mean, Ax gets to be a hero, and Marco gets his mom. And money. Jake gets his family, but what do Cassie and Tobias get?"

"Cassie doesn't have to see any more suffering, and Tobias can come out of hiding," he answered without missing a beat. "But Rachel..." he trailed off.

"Rachel loses," I said.

"Yeah, Rachel loses."

"Wow," I said. "That makes so much sense. How do you figure all that out?"

"It's not hard," he said. "Books are pretty predictable. I mean, they win, of course. If they didn't win, there wouldn't be a series. The thing is, at what cost? There has to be a cost. Someone has to lose something, otherwise the book isn't interesting enough. There _has_ to be a death of an important character before there's a happy ending." He was talking with his hands, and it was almost comical.

"Yeah. I know what you mean. I don't think many people would have liked it as much if—" I forced myself not to speak the last three words.

Marco's eyes went wide. I double-checked, but Jake had not reacted at all. Assumedly he wasn't listening at all.

Marco was sitting in the window seat. I was in the middle and Jake was in the aisle seat. Marco banged his head against the window hard and gritted his teeth. He let his head rest on the window in an awkward, staring-upward position. "Oh god," he said.

I felt sick. What had I done?

Oh God, what had I done?

* * *

**I know what you're all thinking: FINALLY! **

**Yes, here comes the real drama. In all it's glory, the sinister information is REVEALED. Bwahahaha!**


	10. mountainLION

**WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS **

**--A/N: Here we go... the drama continues. And by the by, I (heart) Marco!--**

Chapter 10

"Oh God," he said again. He took a deep, shaky breath. His head righted itself and he looked at me. "If she had lived." His hands were shaking.

I swallowed. He'd done it. Indirectly, he had managed to crack me. I had just told him that one of his best friends were about to die. "Marco," I said, hoping that there was some way to undo my mistake.

"That's what you were going to say, isn't it?" he accused, catching my eyes.

Why did I want so badly to kiss him right now? The impulse was sudden and strong. This wasn't the time for things like that. It obviously wasn't what he wanted, so why did my lips urge to touch his? An image of us, passionately kissing crossed my mind, but I had to brush it away. Why did this always happen to me?

"I was going to tell you all tonight," I said. "I swear! Even ask Tobias!"

"You told Tobias?" he hissed more urgently.

"No! I couldn't. I didn't know how to say it! How am I supposed to..." I choked on a sob and tears started to run down my face. Damn! I had to be strong! Why was I so emotional?

"Alex," Marco said. "You can't cry. Look, I won't mention anything else about it until we get away from Jake, okay? I'll take you to the meeting tonight. It'll be okay."

I nodded and wiped away my tears, holding back the sobs like a couple of sticks trying to hold back a rushing river.

"There's just one thing I need to ask first," Marco said.

I stiffened. Oh no, now what?

"Was there an Alex in the books?"

I shook my head.

"Okay," Marco said. His tone brightened a little. "See? So things can change. We can still turn this around. Now just relax." He leaned back on his seat and closed his eyes. I noticed him grit his teeth for a moment before relaxing again and opening his eyes.

I flung my arms around him and held him. I blinked back tears. "I'm sorry," I said.

He paused for a moment in shock and then put his arms around me. "Don't be sorry, Alex. You're our opportunity to turn this around."

We hugged for a good ten seconds before Marco let go. Just as we separated, Jake took out his earphones. "This is the place," he announced.

The bus slowed screechingly to a stop and the three of us hopped off onto the curb.

There it was: The Gardens. In all of its glory. It was a beautiful mix of roller-coasters and bears, of merry-go-rounds and zebras. There were monkeys, birds, dolphins and whatever else I could possibly need.

"Wow," I said, now completely distracted from my problems. Sometimes I wonder if I have ADD.

"First," Jake said, "the dolphin tank. We should be fully prepared."

So we went to the dolphin tank. I remembered that they had been named after the cast of Friends. I was about to ask which one was Rachel, but then thought better of it. Instead, I just touched the nearest Dolphin and acquired it.

"Chandler," Marco said. "Good choice."

The funny one. And a guy. I smiled a little before following Jake and Marco to the land exhibits.

"Okay, Alex," Jake said. "We'll give you a bit of a choice. Cassie said you were interested in big cats, so you can have a cougar or a lynx. Here they have tame ones, so they'll be easy to acquire."

"Without you being acquired first," Marco quipped.

I considered this. It must have been a test. They were telling me to choose between a mountain lion and a tiny little animal that would hardly be useful.

I tried to imagine myself as each animal, fighting hork-bajir. I had to admit, I liked the look of the lynx a lot better, but the cougar would be much easier to use. A lynx was small and a cougar was big. But I didn't want to be a constant reminder of David. But maybe I wouldn't. Mountain lions didn't have manes or anything.

I clasped my hands together and tried to explain. "Well, I don't have much experience," I said. "I like the idea of a lynx, but it's awfully small and I don't know if I could use it very well. It hunts like, rabbits and stuff doesn't it?"

"Nah," Marco said with a shrug. "It's actually really tough. I think it hunts bigger prey than the cougar sometimes. I was looking them up during science when we were supposed to be working on that cell project."

That put me in a confusing place. I wanted to feel the power of the big cat, but the lynx was now the obvious answer. "What do you guys think I should get?" Really, neither of them would have been my first choice. I would have much rather gone for a white tiger or a panther, or something equally cool. Even a cheetah would have been a better choice. But these were my options.

"I'd get the cougar," Jake said.

"Really?" Marco asked. "I think I would get the lynx."

I hung my head. "That doesn't make my pick any easier."

Marco grinned. "Well, what are you leaning towards?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I guess the lynx is tough, but I mean, the cougar is bigger, and I think I wouldn't have much of a problem using it. In this case, I think bigger might be better."

"Good point," Marco said.

"Maybe you just need to look at them before you decide," Jake said. "They're both over this way."

I followed Marco and Jake. They exchanged a little bit of witty banter about video games, which I was unfamiliar with, so I just laughed along with them. Marco grinned at me at one point and said, "You don't understand a word of what we're talking about, do you?"

"A little," I said defensively.

"Have you ever even played Mario?" Jake asked. He seemed different than usual. He was just laughing and joking with his best friend. It wasn't long before he wouldn't be able to do that anymore.

"I've watched people play it," I said defensively.

Marco blinked. "What?" He stared at me. "How is that even possible? You, my friend, need to get in on some _Super Mario Brothers _time."

My heart jumped at the word "friend." Marco thought I was a friend. I felt honoured. Aside from Cassie, he must have been the only person that liked me.

"Okay," I said eagerly. "That would be awesome!"

I don't usually talk to guys much. The only guy friend I'd ever had at home wasn't so intimidatingly cool and attractive as the guys here were. I guess I had less trouble talking to guys that I felt were below me in social status.

I tried to remember why anyone in the books had ever rejected Marco. He was charming, sweet, funny and clever. Why would anyone not want him for a boyfriend?

"Cool," Marco said.

I could now see the lynx's cage. It wasn't hard to find the animal. A trainer was in the cage and the lynx was jumping on him like an excited puppy.

The first thing I noticed was that the lynx wasn't quite knocking down the trainer. Though it looked like he wobbled, the lynx was unsuccessful in its efforts. It was small, and an ugly gray color. I decided right away that this was not my animal.

"Let's look at the cougar," I said.

So we walked about two cages down and looked at the cougar. It was beautiful. It lounged on a rock right next to the fence. Beyond convenient. All I had to do was reach through the wire and touch it. The bar keeping the people a good two feet from the animals was at my hips. The cougar stared through the cage bars at me lazily.

"Yeah," I said to Jake and Marco. "Yeah, I think I want the cougar."

"Okay," Marco said. "No problem." He turned away from the cougar's cage, looked up, nudged Jake and pointed into the sky. Jake and I followed his gaze, but I saw nothing there.

"Go Alex," Jake said in a low voice.

I looked around and noticed that the few people that were standing around were also looking up, following Marco's stare.

"See?" Marco said loudly. "It's right there!"

"Where?" Jake asked.

Of course! Now I understood! It was a distraction. Nobody was watching the boring cougar anymore. Everyone was shading their eyes and trying to figure out what Marco was looking at.

I quickly stepped over the metal bar and walked up to the cage. The cougar was watching me. I touched a bit of fur that was protruding through the bars. I stroked the little piece gently and the cougar didn't react. I acquired it and then stepped back over the bar before anyone had given up on the sky searching.

"Now do you see it?" Marco asked.

"Oh! There it is!" Jake said. He pointed too. "It's right there. I can't believe I missed it."

I walked over to the two of them and looked up too. "You guys are delusional," I said, "There's nothing there!" I had to stop myself from giggling.

"Ah, whatever!" Marco said. "Come on, let's go! I'll be late for dinner."

So we walked out of The Gardens and got on the bus.

"Alex, do you want to have dinner over at my place?" Marco asked so that Jake could hear.

I gave an involuntary shudder at the memory of what was to come. "Yeah, sure," I answered as casually as I could manage.

"So, you have Friends wherever it is you come from, right?"

"Friends?" I asked. Wasn't that a bit of a personal question?

"Yeah, you know, the T.V. show? Monica, Chandler, Pheobe, Joey, Ross and Rachel?" Marco asked.

"Oh. Yeah. I love that show!"

"Yeah, the dolphins are named after the characters. You picked Chandler."

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"Oh, okay. I just wasn't sure if you got that when I said it," Marco said.

"Nah, I got it," I said.

"Okay," he said.

We sat in an uncomfortable silence for the rest of the bus ride. Obviously he was trying his best not to ask any questions that would send me into a panic, but I was busy trying to figure out the order of the last ten books in my head.

I knew that fourty-five was the one where his dad found out and he saved his mom. What was fourty-six? Well, Visser One was gone so it must have been the one where Visser Three was promoted. Forty-seven was the one with Jake's relative from the civil war. The one where they make the dam. Forty-eight was... what was forty-eight? Every one of these books was important! I couldn't afford to forget a single thing!

I tried to calm myself down. _It's okay ,_I thought, _I can fill in the blanks later._

Now, forty-nine was the one where their parents found out. Fifty was when they recruited the Auxiliary Animorphs and Tom took the morphing cube. Fifty-one was the one with the ducks on the front, when they made the invasion public. Fifty-two was from Ax's point of view, when they took out the yeerk pool with a subway train of explosives. Fifty-three was the one when they get inside the pool ship and beat everyone, and of course, the last book was when Rachel died and the war was over.

So I was only missing one book. I looked at Marco and Jake, hoping that something would come to me. Maybe something they had said would give me a hint.

Of course! _David!_ David hadn't yet come back. And Crayak was going to bribe Rachel. That was the missing piece!

I felt so much better now that it was all fresh in my memory. Now that I knew how things were going to go, I felt like I could plan around them.

Everything was going to be okay.


	11. Pizza and Paper Plates

Chapter 11

Because we had gotten to the Gardens and back so quickly, it was only something like five o'clock when we got back to Marco's house. Jake said he would meet us at Cassie's house at about eight.

We entered Marco's house without a word to each other.

"Hello?" he called. The only response was the yapping of a poodle. She rounded the corner, sniffed us both and then trotted back down the hall, presumably to someone's bedroom. I had forgotten that Nora had a dog, but now after seeing her, I was reminded that it did not belong to Marco and that it actually sort of drove him crazy.

Marco indicated after her. "Remember her name?" he asked.

I was surprised that I could very well remember how it was written, but there was no way in hell I was going to be able to pronounce it. "It starts with an E," I said. "Elucid or something like that."

"Hmm..." Marco said, heading to the kitchen. "You're close." But he didn't correct me. "Nobody's home, so please." He indicated with his hand, giving a slight bow. It was an invitation to spill my guts out and devastate him. I was surprised that he was acting so naturally about this. I felt like I was jumping on thin ice and daring it to crack. He took a pizza box out of the freezer and turned on the oven.

"Are you sure you don't want to like, sit down or something?" I asked Marco. If he cracked, I didn't want him to be collapsing or anything. Not that I'd ever seen anyone collapse outside of the movies. Not that I was actually expecting him to fall helplessly to the ground.

"Can't afford to," he said. "It's my night to make dinner." He flashed me a grin that I could tell was forced.

"Okay," I said. "So, absolutely nothing has happened since the whole thing with Taylor?"

Marco scratched his head and lowered his voice a little. "Well, there was a whole fiasco where Cassie ended up in Australia, and the night we found you we had been spying on a Sharing meeting, but other than that, no."

"The Australia thing!" I said, relieved. "Okay, so that's already happened then?"

"Yeah," Marco said. "If it hadn't, I probably wouldn't remember it."

"All right," I said. "I was so worried that I'd forgotten something. Okay. So I know where this picks up, I think..."

"How long do we have?" Marco asked before I could begin. "How long do we have until the end?" His eyebrows seemed to drop from their false place to a more heavy, intense expression.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. The books don't give a strong concept of time."

"And who do we need to worry about?"

"Rachel," I said. "If anything at all changes about the end result, it has to be her."

Marco gritted his teeth for a moment, then took a deep breath and relaxed his face.

It felt easier this way, with Marco asking quick questions, like a pop quiz. There wasn't enough time for me to feel personal attachment to anything. It was like my friend had missed the ending and was asking for a summary.

"Is there anyone else?" he asked.

"No," I said. But after a thought, I added, "But in the final battle you lose all of the Auxiliary Animorphs and a lot of people from the military. Plus a lot of the free hork-bajir."

"Auxiliary Animorphs?" he asked.

"Yeah, once things start getting crazy, they—I mean, you—I mean, you guys—"

"They," Marco said. "It makes it easier."

"Okay, _they_ make the decision to create more Animorphs with the cube. All of them are disabled, because you know you can trust them not to be infested."

"How many?" Marco asked.

"Twenty, I think," I said.

"All are trustworthy?" he asked, raising one eyebrow in a less depressed and more surprised and curious expression.

I thought hard. I didn't remember much about the Auxiliary Animorphs, but I didn't remember any kind of betrayal from any of them. I nodded.

"And you said the military was involved?"

"Yeah. You reach this general guy, and he quarantines his building for three days."

"And Rachel," he said, "what is she doing when she—" he broke off. He couldn't finish the sentence. His teeth gritted again.

I answered quickly, purposely avoiding looking at the expression on Marco's face. "She's on the blade ship, taking out Tom."

"Does she?" he asked.

"Yes. She kills him."

Marco made a weird noise with his nose. "Good, and where are we?"

"On the pool ship. It's on the ground because you took out the main pool with a subway train full of explosives. You capture the pool ship and you see Rachel over the communicator thingy. Tom betrayed Visser One and tried to take off with his blade ship." I realized that I was using the term 'you' again.

"His?" Marco asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Visser Three gets promoted."

"And why didn't we just take the pool ship up and attack the blade ship?" I wondered why he hadn't asked what happened to the other Visser One. Maybe the Rachel thing was too much for him already.

"Erek," I said, remembering his significance. "He disabled the dracon beams. You needed him to get in, I think, but his programming made him stop you guys."

"So the blade ship escaped?" Marco asked, his face seemed to be in a permanent grimace at this point.

"Yeah, but Tom was dead."

"And we got Visser Three?" he asked.

"Yeah. You trapped him in a suitcase."

Marco laughed shallowly. I was glad to hear that sound, no matter how temporary or how shallow it was. I wanted him to stop being so upset.

"What else happened that needs to be changed?" he asked after a moment.

"Jake and Cassie didn't stay together," I said abruptly. That was the one thing that had always bothered me about the ending. Jake and Cassie had been in love, and they hadn't stayed together. It had felt wrong to me.

Marco looked confused. "Why not?" His expression had softened now into genuine curiosity and normal, teenage concern for his best friend's happiness. He was relieved not to have to hear about more deaths.

"Because Cassie let Tom have the morphing cube."

SMASH!

Marco had been holding a glass of water. Now there was glass and water all over the floor. "WHAT?" he roared.

I cringed away from him. This felt wrong. Marco wasn't supposed to react this way. It was out of character. He was the easygoing, funny one. Not spastic. It was such a contrast from his expression a moment ago. This was anger. This was a Rachel reaction.

"She let Tom what?" he asked again, shrilly.

I didn't trust myself to speak right away. He stared at me a few moments, and I avoided eye contact, knowing that it would be an intense, gaze-locking stare. My voice was hoarse when I found the words. "Well, Tom stole it, and when Jake went after him, she wouldn't let Jake kill Tom, so... he got away."

Marco was shaking. He turned away from me and slammed his fist on the counter.

"Marco?" I asked. This felt so wrong, so terrifying. I had never seen this kind of real anger. Sure, I'd seen my friends storm around and swear over petty things. I'd heard my parents yell at me for one reason or another, but those were of-the-moment things. They were unimportant things that they would get over quickly. Marco's frustration here was real. It was helplessness in the face of true danger. It was like everyone I had ever seen upset before had wanted to get mad, to rage. Marco couldn't stop his harsh breath, his tensed muscles. He had been robbed of the ability to promise himself that everything would be okay. And I had been the one to rob him.

"If Jake had just killed Tom—" he started. I could see where he was going with that.

"But..." I said. "But if Tom had died..." It was so hard to think this way. This was why time travel was a bad idea. Had I travelled through time? Probably not. Or maybe I did. Maybe...

I pushed that aside and concentrated on Tom's importance. Marco was quiet except for his audible shaky breaths, and it gave me time to work out the problem aloud.

"The yeerks started morphing," I said. Marco's body shuddered a little. "But most of them were happy about it. They didn't need a host anymore. The taxxons... the taxxons agreed to work for you guys if you would help them become _nothlits_. They didn't like being hungry all the time. And Tom was how you guys got into the pool ship. He double-crossed you guys and Visser One, but if he hadn't, you couldn't have won!" I had figured out the puzzle. Every piece was essential. "Jake wouldn't have been able to live with himself after if he killed Tom, right?" I looked back at Marco.

Marco had turned to me, he was staring, wide-eyed and bewildered. "Yeah," he said. "I guess you're right." He began cleaning up the glass, but he was still shaking a little, and I could see the glass bounce out of his hands occasionally. I made no move to help him. This was his house and besides, I could not be trusted to touch the stuff without hurting myself.

I stood back and when Marco stood, he smiled at me a little. I smiled and finally noticed the tears running down my cheeks. How had I failed to notice them before? I had always been completely aware when I was going to cry before.

"Why didn't I go instead of Rachel?" Marco asked, taking me by surprise. "I mean, by way of a series, it makes sense not to kill me, but what was standing in my way?" It made me a little sick how he had accepted his reality and was looking from an author's perspective.

"Jake didn't tell anyone," I said. Suddenly I found that I had to think very hard about it. "Rachel was the only one who knew about her mission."

"I'll go," Marco said. "I can do it instead. Rachel and Tobias—they need each other. Cassie and Jake need each other..."

My head conjured up an image of Marco on the blade ship, hiding under the counter, waiting for Jake's order. At Jake's order, he would be a gorilla. Would a gorilla stand a better chance against lions and polar bears than a grizzly? Probably not. I imagined Marco, looking much more vulnerable in contrast to the polar bear than he did to me. I saw the polar bear's paw swing and hit his head. He collapsed, and his fragile human head crashed into the hard floor.

"No!" I yelled, destroying the quiet atmosphere of the nearly empty house. Now the tears were coming noticeably faster. "You can't!" I grabbed his arm. "Nobody has to go! We can figure something out! I can think of something else, okay?" I shook his one arm for emphasis, but was a very awkward gesture.

Marco saw the desperate look in my eyes and nodded. "Okay, Alex. We can figure something else out." There was a patronizing tone in his voice, but it satisfied me anyway. "We should wash up before Nora and Dad get home, okay?" It was like he was speaking to a child.

"Okay," I said. I was too shaken to do anything. I'm not an artist. I don't have the coordination to put anything on paper, but the images in my head are always incredibly vivid. If I could put the image in my head on paper right at that moment, it might have looked like a photograph.

Marco led me to the bathroom, where we rinsed off our faces and washed our hands. I was too dazed to notice how close I was to his body in the cramped space.

DING!

Both of us jumped at the sound. It was the oven timer, telling us that dinner was done. Marco rushed down the hall. He pulled the pizza out of the oven and set the table with paper plates. I followed more slowly. The noise had woken me from my daze, and the image in my mind was fading as long as I didn't look at Marco. I was glad that I didn't know his face well enough to keep in the place where the paw would make contact for long.

The door opened.

There was a sigh and the sound of a bag dropping on the ground.

"Hey," Marco called.

"Hey," a voice called from the entryway. "That faculty meeting lasted far longer than it... Marco! You're making dinner?"

I stepped into a position where I could see Nora clearly. She was surprisingly beautiful. She smiled at me. Something about the way she had spoken had given me a serious case of déjà vu.

"You are the stepson of my dreams!" she said, coming into the kitchen. "Hello," she addressed me, "I'm Nora, Marco's stepmother." She walked over to where I was and shook my hand.

Marco rounded the corner. "This is Alex. Is it all right if she stays for dinner?"

"I don't see why not," she said.

The door opened again. "Hello family!" Marco's dad said. Again, there was a strange feeling that I'd heard it before. But maybe that was the way he always greeted his family. When he saw Nora, he pulled a bouquet of flowers out from behind his back.

"What's the occasion?" she asked.

"Just that you're the most beautiful woman in the world!" he crowed, pulling Nora into a hug. I noticed Marco turn away.

"And who might you be?" Marco's dad asked me. "Maybe you're the lucky girlfriend of my son?" he said, raising an eyebrow with a chuckle.

"Dad, Alex, Alex, Dad," Marco said. He neither confirmed nor dismissed the girlfriend comment. I wondered if there was a reason for that.

Nora was watching Marco's dad closely, and he caved. "Things are getting pretty exciting at work."

Marco's dad and Nora walked over and sat at the table. Marco put a slice of pizza in front of each of them and then got two more slices for us.

"What's up dad, we gonna be rich?" Suddenly I knew why this scene was so familiar. The paper plates, the pizza, Marco's turn to cook. His dad's overjoyed mood. This was _it._

"Marco," I said quickly, thinking of something I could possibly say to get him alone for a moment. "Um, can I see your bedroom?" Okay, it was lame, but it was _something_.

Marco gave me a weird look. I gave him a significant look back. He shrugged. "Sure," he said. I followed him down the hallway. The second we were in his room I shut the door. I heard laughter from the kitchen, but right now I didn't really care what they thought we were doing in here. To tell the truth, I was a little flattered.

"This is _it,_" I hissed.

"What?" Marco asked in a whisper. "What is _it_?" he looked around warily. "Should I start morphing?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "If I'm right, your dad just invented a zero-space radio."

"What?" Marco hissed. "That's ridiculous! There's no way!"

"Way," I said. "And we could have sat in there for another ten minutes and you wouldn't have picked it up until he used the word zero."

"Is he free?" Marco asked, all-business.

"Yes," I said, "but late tonight someone's going to call from work and tell your dad that his friend needs moral support. Then he's going to be ambushed and they're going to try to infest him."

Marco put his hands to his head, an obvious sign of stress. "Oh god," he said, obviously not wanting to deal with this right now. Or possibly ever.

"It's okay," I assured him. "It's okay."

"How is this okay?" Marco hissed.

"You save him," I pressed. This was too soon. I wasn't prepared. I didn't know what things to change. I didn't want to mess with things too much. "Look," I said. "We have a good four or five hours. Let's just go, eat dinner and... and then we'll call the meeting early. Don't worry, I think I know what to do."

Marco was silent for a long time. He stared at me candidly and I had to look away from his eyes before my ridiculous urge to kiss him took over again. This was why I hated eye contact. It felt too intimate. Finally he nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll trust you."


End file.
